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SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 





THE CENTENNIAL MEDAL 



SOME TORCH BEARERS 
IN INDIANA 

By 

CHARITY DYE 

Author of 

THE STORY TELLER'S ART 
LETTERS AND LETTER WRITING 
ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIANA 



The period of life is brief — 

Tw the red of the red rose leaf, 

'Tis the gold of the sunset sky, 

'Tis the flight of a bird on high; 

But one may fill the space 

With such an infinite grace 

That the red will tinge all time, 

And the gold through the ages shine. 

And the bird fly swift and straight 

To the portals of God's own gate/' 

— Anonymous. 
From Unity, August 17, 190S. 



1134 BROADWAY, INDIANAPOLIS 



Copyrighted 1917 



BY 

Charity Dye 



FSZf 

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MAY 26 I9I7 



Printed by The Hollenbeck 
Indianapolis 



J 177 
O # • 



TO MARY A. DYE 

MY SISTER 

WHOSE HELP MADE THIS 

BOOK POSSIBLE 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



I Torch Bearers in Industry 1 

The Studebaker Brothers — Torch Bearers as 
Makers of the Best Wagon for Over Half a 

Century 3 

James Oliver— Torch Bearer Who Gave the 
Oliver Chilled Plow to the World .... 8 
Elias C. Atkins— Torch Bearer Who Gave the 
Saw Which Makes the Raw Material Ready for 

the Home 13 

Chandler and Taylor— Torch Bearers in the 
Making of Boilers to Aid in Preparing Food, 

Shelter and Clothing 18 

Sarah La Tourette— Torch Bearer of the Loom 
Industry in Indiana 21 

II Torch Bearers in Education and Religion . . 25 
Dr. David Hervey Maxwell — Torch Bearer 
Among the Founders of Indiana University . 29 
Caleb Mills— Torch Bearer in Establishing 

Free Public Schools in Indiana 32 

Mother Therese Guerin— Who Lighted the 
Torch for the Higher Education of Woman 

Along the Wabash in Indiana 37 

William A. Wirt— Torch Bearer of the New 

Education at Gary 41 

James H. Smart— Torch Bearer in Technical 

Education 46 

Isaac McCoy— Torch Bearer as Baptist Mis- 
sionary to the Indians 52 

John Finley Crowe— Torch Bearer in Presby- 

terianism 57 

John Strange— Who Carried the Circuit Rider's 

Torch in Early Indiana 61 

Charles Osborne— Torch Bearer in Quakerism 
—the First to Preach Immediate and Uncondi- 
tional Emancipation 65 

Oscar C. McCulloch— Torch Bearer as Founder 

of a Modern Institutional Church .... 71 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

III Torch Bearers in Patriotism and Statesman- 
ship 76 

Jonathan Jennings — Torch Bearer Who Helped 

to Make Indiana a Free State 77 

Abraham Lincoln — Whose Torch Lighted the 
Fire of Freedom in the Hearts of Four Mil- 
lion Slaves 82 

Oliver Perry Morton — Who Bore the Torch of 

Patriotism for Indiana in '61 84 

John Milton Hay — Torch Bearer in American 
Diplomacy 92 

IV Torch Bearers in Law, History and Journalism 98 

Isaac Blackford — Torch Bearer in the Interpre- 
tation of the Law in Early Indiana .... 105 
John B. Dillon— Who Lighted the Torch of 

History in Indiana 109 

Dr. Logan Esarey — Torch Bearer of Research 

in Indiana History in 1915 Ill 

Elihu Stout — Torch Bearer in the Beginnings 

of Journalism in 1804 116 

John H. Holliday — Torch Bearer as Founder 
of the First Two-Cent Evening Paper West of 

the Alleghany Mountains 121 

William A. Bell — Torch Bearer in Educational 
Journalism 125 

V Torch Bearers in Science and Invention . . 130 
David Starr Jordan — Torch Bearer in Many 

Realms of Science 131 

Dr. John Stough Bobbs — Whose Torch of 
Surgery Brought Renown to Indiana . . . 138 
Dr. George A. Reisner — Who Now Bears the 

Archaeologist's Torch in Egypt 143 

Mary W. Plummer — Torch Bearer in Library 

Science 148 

Elwood Haynes — Torch Bearer in Invention — 

Creator of the First Automobile 154 

James B. Eads — The Man Who Bore the En- 
gineer's Torch in Two Worlds 161 

VI Torch Bearers in Kindness 167 

Richard Owen — Whose Torch of Kindness 

Made Friends of His Enemies 168 

George Merritt — Torch Bearer in Altruism . 175 



CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VII Torch Bearers in Civil and Social Progress . 182 
John Tipton— Among the First to Bear the 
Torch of Civic Service in Indiana .... 183 
Timothy Nicholson — Torch Bearer in Prison 
Reform in Indiana for Over Fifty Years . . 189 
Ernest P. Bicknell — Who Now Bears the Torch 
of the American Red Cross in the Wake of 

Disaster and Distress 194 

Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon — Torch Bearer in 

Housing Reform 200 

Dr. Harvey W. Wiley — Torch Bearer in Pure 

Food Reform 208 

Constance Fauntleroy Runcie — Torch Bearer in 
Founding the First Woman's Literary Club in 

the United States 213 

Mary Garrett Hay — Torch Bearer as Organizer 

of Woman's Work 216 

VIII Torch Bearers in Art and Music 221 

William Merritt Chase — Torch Bearer as 

Painter and Teacher of Art 224 

Janet Scudder — Torch Bearer in Sculpture . 228 
Amalia Kuessner Coudert — Torch Bearer in the 

Art of Miniature Painting 232 

Fred Coffay Yohn — Torch Bearer in the Illus- 
trator's Art 235 

Edwin May — Torch Bearer in Architecture . 237 
Madame Sarah Layton Walker Cahier — Torch 

Bearer in Song 241 

IX Torch Bearers in Letters 245 

The Earlier Group 251 

Some Reminiscences of James Whitcomb 

Riley 251 

Sarah T. Bolton 254 

Edward Eggleston 255 

William Vaughn Moody— Who Held Aloft the 
Poet's Torch in the United States .... 257 
The Later Group — Who Are Now Handing on 

the Torch 266 

George Ade 266 

Elizabeth Miller Hack 272 

Meredith Nicholson 275 

Anna Nicholas 282 

Booth Tarkington 287 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

X The Centennial Torch 291 

What the Children Were Saying in the State- 
Wide Letter Exchanges in 1916 297 

The Indiana Centennial Medal Executed by 

Janet Scudder 302 

Centennial Ode by William Dudley Foulke . 303 

Centennial Music 309 

Chas. Divan Campbell's Hymn to Indiana . 310 

Centennial Suite by Frederic Krull . . . 312 
"For a Pioneer Memorial" — Mrs. Corinne L. 

Barcus 313 

"Indiana Slogan" — Mrs. Corinne L. Barcus . 314 

"From the Soul of the Pioneer Mother" . . 315 



PREFACE 

WHILE the afterglow of the Statehood Cen- 
tennial is still bright, it seems worth while to 
place in permanent form some examples of the great 
character wealth brought out in our celebration. 

The name "Torch Bearers" herein used applies to 
those who have shed luster upon Indiana by special 
service to the state. Some of these were born in In- 
diana, others have come from many states in the 
Union, and still others from foreign countries. 
Every one is really a "Torch Bearer" who stands at 
his post in any station of life and fulfils his duty to 
the uttermost, so the few examples herein given only 
indicate that there are thousands of others worthy 
of this name. 

This book is not intended to give complete biog- 
raphies, but to emphasize the high lights of character 
connected with the activities of the respective indi- 
viduals mentioned. 

Some of these sketches first appeared in the "Cen- 
tennial Story Hour" of the Sunday Star, with which 
the author was associated for a year; the others 
have been written for this volume. 

Special acknowledgments are hereby made to The 
Atlantic Monthly and Putnam's Magazine; to Mr. 
William Dudley Foulke for the article on Oliver P. 
Morton ; to Mr. William Allen Wood for the article 

ix 



x PREFACE 

on Law ; to Miss Laura Greeley for the sketches on 
Prison Reform and the Red Cross; to Miss Mary 
Nicholson for the sketches on Jonathan Jennings 
and John Tipton; to Doctor Logan Esarey for the 
pages on Elihu Stout; to Professor Stanley Coulter; 
to Mrs. Eliza C. Bell; to Mr. John Oliver; to Miss 
Martha Howes and Miss Anna Taylor for assist- 
ance ; to Miss Mildred Weld for reading the proof, 
and to many others who have generously aided me 
in securing material. P ^ 

Indianapolis, March, 1917. 



INVOCATION 

OTHOU whose equal purpose runs 
In drops of rain or streams of suns, 
And with a soft compulsion rolls 
The green earth on her snowy poles, 
O Thou who keepest in thy ken 
The times of flowers, the dooms of men, 
Stretch out a mighty wing above — 
Be tender to the land we love ! 

If all the huddlers from the storm 

Have found her hearthstone wide and warm, 

If she has made men free and glad, 

Sharing, with all, the good she had, 

If she has blown the very dust 

From her bright balance to be just, 

Oh, spread a mighty wing above — 

Be tender to the land we love ! 

When in the dark eternal tower 
The star-clock strikes her trial hour, 
And for her help no more avail 
Her sea-blue Shield, her mountain-mail, 
But sweeping wide, from gulf to lakes, 
The battle on her forehead breaks, 
Throw Thou a thunderous wing above — 
Be lightning for the land we love ! 

— Wendell Phillips Stafford. 

By permission of the Atlantic Monthly. 



SOME TORCH BEARERS 
IN INDIANA 

CHAPTER I 
Torch Bearers in Industry 

THE story of the industrial development of 
Indiana is the old story of the Giant outwit- 
ted by the Dwarf. Here, the Giant, Nature, has 
gradually given way to Man, the Dwarf, until no 
part within our borders has been left untouched by 
the hand of man. 

The space of one chapter is too meager to permit 
of anything more than a finger point to the Torch 
Bearers of Industry. It would take several volumes 
to give any adequate account of those who have 
helped to bring us where we are to-day. The ex- 
amples herein given have emphasized the qualities 
of character that went to the making of the imple- 
ments by which food, shelter and clothing are pro- 
vided, not only for the people of our state, but for 
the people all over the world. 

The plow in whose furrows spring the cornfields 
and wheat harvest; the wagon by means of which 
the grain is garnered; the steam engine which has 

1 



2 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

succeeded horse and water power in the preparation 
of food; the saw which makes the lumber and the 
stone ready for the homes, factories and public 
buildings; and the loom by means of which we are 
clothed and kept warm, deserve our highest respect. 

It is to be hoped that before the celebration of 
the Centennial of the founding of Indianapolis as 
the capital of Indiana there will be written a com- 
plete account of the industrial development of that 
city, which ranks as the greatest commercial and 
industrial inland center of the United States, and 
one of the greatest in the world. 

There are yet to be told the stories of the quarry- 
ing of her Bedford stone; the manufacture of her 
glass and brick; the use of the retort in manufac- 
turing drugs in such firms as the Eli Lilly Com- 
pany, who are to-day supplying the Orient with 
their products, to say nothing of the automobile and 
other great industries of our state. 

The commercial life has kept pace with the indus- 
trial. Indeed they are so linked together that there 
would be little incentive to make articles unless there 
were the element of exchange whereby the producer 
could meet the consumer through his product. 

The department stores furnish a socialized exam- 
ple of modern business methods. Not only do they 
supply under one roof all of the household needs, 
but they educate their employes; provide excellent 
conditions under which they can work ; enable them 



INDUSTRY 3 

to attend lectures during business hours by means 
of shifts; give them instruction in the ethics of busi- 
ness and in the nature of materials which they han- 
dle. Organizations for the proper carrying on of 
business now exist in every city in Indiana. 



THE STUDEBAKER BROTHERS 

Torch Bearers as Makers of the Best Wagon for 
Over Half a Century 

The Studebaker brothers came to South Bend in 
1852. During this year they made two wagons. 
The first wagon made in Indiana, by Pokagon, the 
Pottawattomie chief, had long been a tradition, and 
the ruts made by its wheels in the mellow sands of 
the old Sauk Trail, running through northern Indi- 
ana from Detroit to Fort Dearborn, were long grass- 
grown. But the charm of nature lingered in the 
Kankakee region around South Bend. The swamps 
still held the cultivation of land at bay. The wild 
rice and sedge grass and the spongy islands made 
an inviting home to the blue heron and the white 
aigret and other wild birds which nested there and 
gave their evening concerts. The town Pokagon, 
named for the Pottawattomie chief, was itself, even 
then, in decay. 

Another wagon had also found its way up the old 
Sauk Trail. It had come from Mexico, and its pred- 



4 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

ecessors had in turn come from the old world. This 
wagon was made after the fashion of the Moors of 
north Africa, and is said to be the same kind as 
that which Joseph and his brethren used when they 
moved out of Egypt. 

In 1736 the ship Harle landed in Philadelphia, 
from Holland, bearing as one of its passengers Peter 
Studebaker, an ancestor of the Studebaker brothers 
in South Bend. Little is told of them for many years, 
but they settled in Pennsylvania, where they fol- 
lowed wagon-making and blacksmithing. One rec- 
ord of their life there affords a splendid index to 
their character. An inscription on an old door 
where they lived, reads : 

"Owe No Man Anything. 
Love All Men." 

The story of the Studebakers' coming to Indiana 
is that of hundreds of other pioneers so familiar to 
us all. They brought from Pennsylvania in the large 
white-covered wagon their household goods, and 
stopped at Ashland, Ohio, in the year 1837. They 
carried on the wagon-makers' trade there, but finan- 
cial trouble beset them, not only on account of the 
great panic of that year, but because the father of 
the family had to part with his property in order to 
pay a note of security to which he had signed his 
name. They loved this place and had a reunion there 
years after. Neighbors and friends came from many 



INDUSTRY 5 

states in the Union. The old landmarks were vis- 
ited and former friendships renewed. 

A tavern keeper in Ashland unwittingly paid a 
high tribute to Studebakers when he said to a vis- 
itor who applied for lodging : "Old Studebaker lives 
just a mile east. He is known clear to the Alleghany 
Mountains. His home is always full, because he 
does not charge anything. If he would move out 
of the county I would have a good business." 

The late John M. Studebaker, one of the five 
brothers of the wagon-making firm at South Bend, 
stood before the Indiana Bar Association assembled 
at that place in July, 1912. He had come by invita- 
tion to speak upon the Workmen's Compensation 
Act, recommended by Addison C. Harris and John 
T. Dye. He, a workman, stood before the trained 
legal minds of the state as a man among men. Both 
the lawyers and workmen had arrived through dif- 
ferent routes to the same conviction, that justice 
was the only sure basis for dealings between em- 
ployer and employe. This workman commanded 
high respect by virtue of his life and the great mem- 
ories associated with his course in the business which 
he represented. Those who knew him remembered 
his past and the high character for which he stood. 
He told his story in a simple straightforward way 
from the time he received twenty-five or fifty cents 
a day to the position then occupied in his corpora- 
tion. He told the lawyers there would be no need 



6 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

of a compensation act if every corporation treated 
its workmen as the Studebakers treated theirs ; that 
is, taking care of the injured workmen in the hos- 
pital, providing for their families while they were 
away, and securing the workmen a place when they 
returned from the hospital. He said that from the 
employment of two men to the employment of ten 
thousand he had never had but one law-suit for 
injury; also that great corporations were not man- 
aged as was theirs, because the Studebaker firm was 
an association of brothers, whereas the great cor- 
porations were generally managed by men other 
than the owners of the property. He made a plea 
for "a square deal," and said that it was a great 
advantage to know the position of the employer and 
the employe, both of which he had himself held. 

As John M. Studebaker stood before the lawyers 
and judges of Indiana his listeners took not so much 
account of the great accumulation of riches as of 
the vast wealth of character represented through a 
man who said that he was trained to honesty and 
fair dealing in his youth. His chief satisfaction lay 
in the fact that the product of his great manufac- 
turing establishment was the best of its kind; it rep- 
resented good material, honest workmanship, and 
a moderate price. The Studebaker Brothers have 
been public benefactors in the city of South Bend. 
In addition one of them paid, secretly, for the tomb 



INDUSTRY 7 

placed at the grave of Abraham Lincoln's mother, 
in Spencer County. 

To show how they never lost their early ideals 
of the essentials of character, a copy of the follow- 
ing resolution, which was adopted by the board of 
directors of the company during the Spanish- Ameri- 
can war, hangs in the Studebaker Building to-day: 

"Resolved, That under the present call of the 
President of the United States for members of the 
National Guard to serve in the war with Spain, this 
company will re-employ men who leave its employ 
to respond to said call, and while such employes are 
in actual service of the United States during the war, 
this company will continue the names of such em- 
ployes on the pay-roll at their present rate of daily 
earnings and appropriate such pay to the support of 
the families of those who are married and the de- 
pendents of those who are single." 

To-day the Studebaker firm is known over the 
round world. Their first success came from large 
orders during the Civil war. In an official report 
from Lord Roberts to the British Parliament one 
may read: "Wagons were imported from the 
United States, and these proved to be superior to 
any other make, either of Cape or English manu- 
facture. They were built by the Studebaker Man- 
ufacturing Company, who have a great vehicle fac- 
tory at South Bend, Indiana." 



8 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

From the making of two wagons in the year 1852 
the industry has increased to a plant that covers one 
hundred ten acres and now employs thousands of 
men. Success has not dimmed the early standards, 
and the name "Studebaker" stands for integrity, 
honor and humanitarian treatment of its workmen. 
This firm may well be called one of the great Torch 
Bearers of Industry in the state of Indiana. 



JAMES OLIVER 

Torch Bearer Who Gave the Oliver Chilled Plow 
to the World 

Scotland, with its blue skies and purple heather, 
its moors and glens, and its plow-boy poet, Robbie 
Burns, forms a suitable background for the child- 
hood of Jamie Oliver, who in after life gave to the 
world the Oliver Chilled Plow, which now turns the 
furrows in almost every country. 

Jamie Oliver was the youngest of eight children, 
six sons and two daughters, born into the home of 
a Scotch shepherd, whom Jamie doubtless helped as 
he watched the flock on the landed estate where his 
cottage stood. We fancy that Jamie also gathered 
fagots for the fire and helped his mother, who 
dowered him with the genius which he afterward 
showed. In 1830, when Jamie was seven years old, 
John Oliver, the eldest of the family, felt the call 



INDUSTRY 9 

of the new world and came hither to try his luck. 
He was soon followed by Andrew and Jane. The 
letters received from these three children contained 
money earned in America. They also said : "Come 
to America. There is plenty of work to do here 
and money to pay for it. We do not have to carry 
fagots for the fires, for there are trees in the way 
waiting to be burned. There is plenty to eat here, 
too." 

Upon reading these reports the Scotch mother 
would say, as she knitted more furiously, "We will 
go to America/' while the shepherd father shook his 
head and gave a hundred reasons why they should 
not go. But Jamie always wound up the conversa- 
tion by saying, "We will go to America and get 
rich." All unconsciously to himself this little boy 
had made up his mind to try the new world. Visions 
of the great oceans and the great new land on the 
other side and the plenty of everything had long 
attracted him, and so, when Jamie was eleven years 
old, the shepherd and his family set sail for America. 

Jamie enjoyed the journey more than he had an- 
ticipated. He saw men buried at sea, and every 
experience was new to him. After landing at Castle 
Garden they sailed up the Hudson to Albany. They 
saw the first railroad, rode upon the canal, and 
finally were united with John and Andrew and Jane, 
at Geneva, New York. They stayed there until 
rumors came of land in the "Far West," in Indiana; 



10 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

land which was to be given away by the government. 
In 1836 they came to the town of Mishawaka, on 
the banks of the St. Joseph River, in St. Joseph 
County, Indiana. There was iron ore about this 
place, and people said it was bound to be a great 
city in time. Here Jamie found work. He was at 
first noted for his great appetite, but it was said of 
him at the age of fourteen that he could do a man's 
work. It was here that he received his only year's 
schooling, under a teacher named Merrifield. 

There was at this time in Mishawaka a home bear- 
ing the signs of plenty, around which stood a picket 
fence. The glory of this home, owned by Joseph 
Doty, was a daughter Susan. She was beautiful, 
graceful, and in every way charming, forming a 
contrast to the red-haired Scotch lad, whose heart 
she had won. He was manly, earnest, intelligent, 
straightforward and full of purpose, which made 
him a suitable companion for Susan Doty. At first 
James Oliver did not find favor with the Doty par- 
ents, because Mr. Doty thought him too poor to 
take a wife, but word came to James in some mys- 
terious way that the father of Susan had dropped 
the remark that if young Oliver had a home he 
might consider him for a son-in-law. James imme- 
diately took the hint and was able to secure a neat 
little home upon the payment of eighteen dollars in 
cash, two dollars less than the man had originally 



INDUSTRY 11 

asked. James and Susan were married in 1844, 
and their little home was a paradise indeed ! 

In 1855 James Oliver heard of a foundry in 
South Bend, Indiana. He bought the foundry at 
an inventory price, which proved to be $88.96. He 
paid cash for this, having in his pocket $100 at the 
time. He moved to South Bend, where he lived the 
remainder of his life. The purchase of the foun- 
dry included a plow factory, which interested James 
Oliver very much, and it was now that this imple- 
ment of labor claimed a great deal of his attention 
and thought. He decided that a plow should be 
light and well-made and should scour in the soil and 
turn over the furrow in a way that would save labor 
on the part of both the horses and the plowman. 
For twelve long years he worked upon this idea, 
waiting and experimenting and keeping up his cour- 
age till he invented a form whereby the iron could 
be chilled without being warped, and at the same 
time could be wonderfully tempered. The charac- 
teristics of the form for the mold-board provided 
checkers whereby the air could get through during 
the cooling process, which was partly aided by run- 
ning water. The plow-share was made separate 
from the mold-board and could be attached at will. 
The patent for the Oliver Chilled Plow was taken 
out. From this time the success of James Oliver's 
invention proved itself and the Oliver Chilled Plow 
became known over the world. 



12 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Mr. Oliver was not spoiled by wealth and recog- 
nition, but continued to work with the plow as long 
as he lived, always trying to make it better. He sold 
it in the open market and avoided competition. It 
is said that wealth was not his main aim, but rather 
he sought to give mankind an implement related to 
the soil as a necessity of life. 

Two children were born to them, Josephine, 
named for the wife of Napoleon, and Joseph, who 
still carries on his father's industry, which has mul- 
tiplied beyond all expectation. James Oliver knew 
how to manage men and he himself supervised his 
work. He was proud of his plow and regarded it 
a work of dignified labor. Elbert Hubbard, in his 
"Life of James Oliver," narrates the following: A 
few weeks before his death, which occurred in 1908, 
at the age of eighty-five, some one told him this little 
story of Tolstoi's : "A priest, seeing a peasant plow- 
ing, approached him and said, Tf you knew you were 
to die to-night, how would you spend the rest of the 
day?' 

"And the peasant promptly answered, T would 
plow.' 

"It seems the priest thought the man would an- 
swer, Tn confession,' or Tn prayer,' or 'At church.' 
The priest heard the answer in surprise. He thought 
a moment, and then replied, 'My friend, you have 
given the wisest answer a man can possibly make, 



INDUSTRY 13 

for to plow is to pray, since the prayer of honest 
labor is always answered.' " 

The story impressed Mr. Oliver. He told it to 
several people and then made a personal application 
of it thus: "If I knew I were to die to-night I 
would make plows to-day." This torch bearer of 
industry had made the connection that if to plow is 
to pray, to make a plow is also an act of high rev- 
erence. 

ELIAS C. ATKINS 

Torch Bearer Who Gave the Saw Which Makes 
the Raw Material Ready for the Home 

No observant person traveling through Lawrence 
County, Indiana, can fail to notice, loaded on the plat- 
form-cars ready for shipment, great cubical blocks 
of stone which have been neatly sliced, as the house- 
wife slices her loaf of bread. Should this same per- 
son visit a large saw-mill he would there see the iron 
claws suspended from the derrick, open and clutch 
in their grasp a giant log, which is swung over and 
in a few minutes is also cut as was the stone — it may 
be into sleepers or rafters or weather-boarding for 
some home or factory. Let him go a little farther 
and visit the veneer factory and there he will see 
by the same process a splendid walnut log sliced into 
hundreds of sheets, each of which is as thin as a 



14 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

piece of writing paper. These are for veneer for 
the furniture now being produced in Indiana and 
over the West. And what is the immediate instru- 
ment by which all these things are done? It is the 
saw which, with its diamond points, can cut steel 
and iron as easily as wood. This is the instrument 
which converts our splendid oolitic limestone and 
great forest trees ready for our public buildings and 
homes. It seems a long way back from this efficient 
instrument to its predecessor, the pit saw, which de- 
manded that one man be placed in the pit under the 
great log, guiding the course of the straight saw 
while one or perhaps two men stood on top pulling 
it up and down. The man who was instrumental 
in bringing about this development in the Indiana 
industry of saw-making, the industry that bears such 
close relation to the conversion of the natural for- 
ests and stone into the building material for homes 
and business and public structures, was Elias C. 
Atkins. 

This Indiana torch bearer of industry was born 
at Bristol, Connecticut, in 1833. He was of pure 
English stock, his ancestor of the fourth generation 
back coming from England to America in the seven- 
teenth century. He attended the public schools of 
Bristol until, at the age of twelve, he was appren- 
ticed to the trade of saw-making in his father's shop, 
and upon his father's death became the head of the 
concern. Later, at the age of eighteen, he attended 



INDUSTRY 15 

Suffield Academy for one year. His education aft- 
erward was, like that of most of our great pioneer 
torch bearers, obtained from work, observation and 
self-directed study. 

In the year of 1855 he came to Cleveland, Ohio, 
where he successfully continued the business of saw- 
making. One year later, in 1856, being lured by the 
giant trees which nature had been centuries growing 
in Indiana, he came here to continue his original 
business, and settled in Indianapolis. The city was 
young then, and inconveniences were many. For 
the first few years his shop was nothing more than 
a shed, but with stupendous energy and great will 
and foresight he carried on his business, much of 
the time being both his own employer and employe. 
A characteristic little incident is told of how a for- 
mer employe, Mr. Louis Suher, walked all the way 
from Vermont to Indiana in order to work under 
the man who had given him employment in his early 
life. Surely this is a tribute to the justice of an 
employer to the laborer in his hire. Mr. Atkins 
bought hickory lumber and placed Suher to the mak- 
ing of ax handles, the profit of which barely paid 
his wages. 

After coming to Indiana Mr. Atkins soon found 
that the demands of his business necessitated not 
only the making and repairing of saws already in 
use, but the invention of new patterns. He was his 
own inventor, and many patents stand to his record 



16 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

in the patent office at Washington, D. C. Besides 
these he patented a great many appliances which 
have been kept in his own business exclusively for 
the work of his company. 

His close application to his business and the un- 
derstanding of it from the very beginning up, made 
him necessarily successful, though he had to cope 
with odds in the way of several fires. After one of 
these his mother came down to the shop the next 
morning to comfort him over his loss, but she found 
him with coat ofl starting in on the repairs and 
showing a high determination of spirit. 

After another fire, when he had begun the repairs, 
he glanced over the letter-book and saw that his sec- 
retary had written letters canceling orders. He said, 
"Destroy those letters ; it is not for us to cancel or- 
ders, it is for the men who gave the orders to do 
that. Write to these men and ask their indulgence 
and tell them that the orders will be filled as soon as 
possible." Nothing daunted him. 

About 1865 he went west in search of health. 
While there he was not idle, but engaged profitably 
in the mining business. When he returned to Indian- 
apolis he resumed his place in the firm, where he 
still superintended the tempering of the steel and 
managed the entire business. His firm had grown 
from the employment of a few men to that of over 
a thousand. 

Mr. Atkins, like many a man whose business has 



INDUSTRY 17 

grown through a long number of years, was lucky 
to have a son who would step into his place and 
carry on the business, until to-day goods labeled "E. 
C. Atkins & Co., Indianapolis, Indiana, U. S. A.," 
travel to all parts of the world and are used in pre- 
paring the raw material for the homes and business 
buildings of mankind. Branch offices of this firm 
are in Sidney, Australia ; Paris, France ; in Canada ; 
in the great cities of the Atlantic and Pacific sea- 
boards and inland centers of the United States. 

The firm of E. C. Atkins has made a name among 
workmen, so that any man considers himself for- 
tunate to be employed by this company. Already 
some men known to the writer have spent their en- 
tire lives working for this firm, which without pub- 
licity has been known to add a per cent, of its profits 
to the wages of the employes. 

His death occurred on April 18, 1901. The press 
at the time reviewed his life and spoke of him as a 
public spirited man of liberality and integrity, pos- 
sessing the qualities of statesmanship. 

By his life and energy and public spirit Elias C. 
Atkins truly deserves the name of one of the torch 
bearers of industry in Indiana. 



18 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 



CHANDLER AND TAYLOR 

Torch Bearers in the Making of Boilers to Aid in 
Preparing Food, Shelter and Clothing 

The power produced by the boiler is as indispensa- 
ble in solving the problem of food, shelter and cloth- 
ing as the machinery which it operates. 

One realizes the importance of steam power when 
he thinks how it has supplanted the horse-power and 
the simple water-power of early times. It has not 
been so long ago in Indiana since the flail, the wheat- 
fan and the horse-power threshing-machines were 
all employed in preparing the grain for the garner. 
The pioneers often had to go sixty miles to mill be- 
cause there was no other place for grinding the grain 
except on the banks of some stream which would 
furnish the water-power. The large saws were not 
in use because there was no power great enough to 
manipulate them. 

Our cotton mills and great garment, factories 
would also be silent if the looms and the machines 
could not be moved by steam power. All this has 
been changed by the boiler. Now, every neighbor- 
hood can have its own saw or grain mill if it desires, 
independent of water-power. The great saws can 
make lumber yards wherever there are trees to sup- 
ply them. Farmers can grind their own sorghum 
and make their own molasses whenever they see fit. 



INDUSTRY 19 

Chandler and Taylor have been making boilers for 
over half a century in Indiana and are considered 
pioneers in this branch of industry. Their scope and 
effectiveness have steadily grown until they are well 
known over the world. These men, Mr. Thomas 
Chandler and Mr. Franklin Taylor, were kinsmen. 
Both were born in Pennsylvania, both birthright 
members of the Society of Friends. Mr. Chandler, 
the senior member of the firm, came to Indianapolis 
in 1858. He received his education and training in 
Pennsylvania, and engaged in other manufactures 
before he made boilers. On the crest of the family 
of Mr. Thomas Chandler is the legend, "Ad mortem 
fidelis." He retired from the firm in 1897 in order 
to engage in the improvement of his farm. 

Mr. Franklin Taylor was born in 1814. After 
spending his boyhood on the farm he engaged in 
teaching, then became a civil engineer, and was one 
of the surveyors of the Miami Canal, in the state 
of Ohio. Following this he became a merchant in 
Alexandria, Virginia. Although a peace-loving 
Quaker, Mr. Taylor served in a Pennsylvania regi- 
ment in the war for the Union. During his lifetime 
the home of Mr. Taylor and his wife, Phoebe Mode 
Taylor, was a center for liberal thought along relig- 
ious and educational lines. They were among the 
founders of the first Unitarian church in Indian- 
apolis, and their names are spoken with reverence 



20 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

by hosts of friends. Both Mr. and Mrs. Taylor 
passed away in the same year, 1895. 

Following the custom of other great industrial 
firms which have been able to hand on their stand- 
ards for good workmanship, honesty and fair deal- 
ing, the firm of Chandler and Taylor is now carried 
on by younger members of the families. The prod- 
ucts of this company at the present time consist al- 
most exclusively of steam engines and steam boilers, 
because there is naturally very little demand for the 
kind of machinery made in the early days of their 
manufacture. The steam engine and boiler busi- 
ness has grown until this firm has found markets in 
almost every country. 

Machinery for handling the heavy parts of the 
boiler and steam engine does away with the neces- 
sity of employing men for that purpose, so the list 
of employes of the Chandler and Taylor Company is 
not as large as their output would indicate. Even 
now they occasionally build steam power outfits 
which are sectionalized into small packages, so that 
each individual package can be safely transported 
on the backs of mules in the mountainous districts 
of Central and South America, and these plants are 
erected far from railroads and sometimes right in 
the mountains, so that to-day this Indianapolis firm 
is manufacturing products which are helping pio- 
neers far away from Indiana. 



INDUSTRY 21 

SARAH LA TOURETTE 
Torch Bearer of the Loom Industry in Indiana 

Sarah La Tourette is not announced among the 
Torch Bearers of Industry by any medal or recogni- 
tion of the great. Hers was a modest life, spent in 
simple industry, unconscious of its relation to the 
world of household arts. 

This weaver on the Wabash busily plied her shut- 
tle to and fro day after day, not knowing or 
thinking that the industrial art in which she was 
engaged dated back to the dawn of history. She 
did not know that every civilization of the past has 
left among its remains examples of textile fabrics 
made by women, nor had she heard that a loom much 
like the one at which she sat was pictured on the 
Campanile, the great Tower of Giotto, in Florence, 
begun in 1334. It is not probable that she even 
knew that several years before she came to Indiana 
the Rappites in Posey County, of this state, were 
making fabrics of the finest weaves out of wool, 
silk, and flax, produced in their own community. 

Sarah La Tourette, then a young woman, came to 
Indiana about 1824. Her brother, Schuyler La Tou- 
rette, who still lives on the old home farm near Cov- 
ington, Fountain County, has given the following 
data concerning his sister Sarah : 

"Sister Sarah bore the same name as my mother. 



22 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Father was of pure Huguenot ancestry. He was a 
weaver of all kinds of fabrics from table linen to 
double coverlets. My sister Sarah seemed to inherit 
the art of coverlet weaving from father, back of 
whom this art can be traced through twelve to fif- 
teen generations. She perhaps wove more coverlets 
by hand loom than any other girl or woman who 
ever lived. Much of her work can be seen through- 
out the states of Indiana and Illinois. She lived to 
be ninety years less twenty days. 

"I live on the farm where father and mother first 
settled and reared a family of fourteen in number, 
eight boys and six girls. I am the only one of the 
family living — a boy of eighty-two years. 

"Mother did the coloring for our neighborhood. 
Barks of trees, roots and plants were used. Black 
oak and bitter or red hickory furnished the yellow. 
The roots of madder, a garden plant, colored the 
red. White walnut or butternut (inner bark) made 
a handsome brown (which became very unpopular 
in northern Indiana during the civil war). Indigo 
was the base for many colors. The yellow given a 
bath in the indigo gave the green; the red in the 
same bath gave the black. Sumach was much used 
by our mothers to color wool blankets and the boys' 
clothing. All the early settlers kept sheep for the 
wool. 

"In the cabin, which still stands, where Sister 
Sarah wove from morning till night, there were 



INDUSTRY 23 

three other looms busy most of the time. I used to 
carry the spools for my sister, who was such a fast 
weaver that she kept me very busy. Honorable 
mention is made of her by Marie Woodbury, Dan- 
ville, Illinois, in her pamphlet, 'Ye Olde Coverlets.' 
I often think of those early days and our happy 
home, and how father taught his children along with 
those of the neighbors when a teacher could not be 
secured. Sister Sarah was more than a weaver. 
She had a sprightly mind, was interested in people, 
and had uncommonly good taste." 

The coverlets woven by Sarah La Tourette and 
others in pioneer times have since been dignified by 
the name of American tapestry, many specimens of 
which contain most beautiful designs and do not 
suffer in comparison with modern tapestry, more 
elaborate in color and pattern. 

Many homes in the early times provided a special 
house, called the loom house, in which were woven 
the covers and textile material for clothing. 

When we look to-day at the beautiful loom prod- 
ucts of the early times we little dream of the great 
strains of race inheritance and industrial aptitude 
that stand back of them. Indeed, in this chapter, 
"Torch Bearers in Industry," we see our indebted- 
ness to Scotland, England, Germany and France. 

Although the power loom has replaced the hand 
loom, yet there is to-day a revival of household art 
work as part of the vocational training in the new 



24 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

education of the United States. This was really 
started in England by John Ruskin and William 
Morris in the middle of the nineteenth century. 

When the history of the household arts of Indi- 
ana is fully known, the contribution to the problems 
of cover and clothing by Sarah La Tourette in the 
early times will occupy an ample space. 

This woman, who died without recognition, would 
be all surprised now at the notice made of her work 
in the Centennial Year of Indiana Statehood. 



CHAPTER II 

Torch Bearers in Education and Religion 

EDUCATION and religion form the warp and 
the woof of the seamless garment of the soul. 
This idea must have been in the minds of the fram- 
ers of the Congressional Ordinance of 1787 when 
they inserted the clause : ''Religion, morality and 
knowledge being necessary to good government and 
the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of 
education shall forever be encouraged." 

The evolution of educational development in In- 
diana may be said to have gone through at least two 
distinct stages, if not more. The pioneers who 
were the real founders of the state were educated 
people and established private and denominational 
schools wherever it was possible. The first consti- 
tution of Indiana, in 1816, made provision for a 
system of free education culminating in a university 
which should be free to all the people. 

As time went on, and distances were great, and 
opportunities for going to school were few, there 
seemed to be a period of decadence in the educa- 
tional status of Indiana. 

Before the rise of free public schools, so well pro- 
vided for in the Constitution of 1851, illiteracy 

25 



26 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

seemed to be at its height, but in spite of this, up to 
1833, Indiana College (now Indiana University) 
was teaching philosophy, higher mathematics, Latin 
and Greek; and Hanover College had been estab- 
lished on the Ohio River. There were many teach- 
ers in early Indiana who left an indelible impression 
upon the state. They were real missionaries in ed- 
ucation and their work is "counted unto them for 
righteousness." Among this class might be men- 
tioned Julia Dumont, of Vevay, and John I. Mor- 
rison, of Salem. Belonging to a later time is the 
name of Nebraska Cropsey, for forty years assist- 
ant superintendent of the Indianapolis schools, from 
which office her influence radiated through the state 
and nation. 

To-day the schools of Indiana are preparing its 
citizens for every walk in life. Her normal schools, 
public and private, particularly the State Normal 
School at Terre Haute and the Special Normal 
School at Valparaiso, have reduced teaching to a sci- 
ence, and are yearly sending forth teachers trained 
in the art of education. And there is now emphasis 
laid upon the kindergarten, of which Eliza Blaker 
is Torch Bearer, as the place to begin to train the 
growing child. 

Technical education, though greatly emphasized 
by the Owen community in New Harmony as early 
as 1825, has within the last quarter of a century re- 
ceived a new impetus and to-day occupies the fore- 
most place in the public mind. 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 27 

Religion in Indiana was introduced by the French 
missionaries, who were the first to plant the cross in 
the Northwest Territory, before the state was or- 
ganized. The early settlers had their meetings in 
the homes and in the groves. Taking into account 
all denominational differences, it is safe to say that 
there never was a time that the sentiment of the 
following poem could not be sanctioned : 

THERE IS NO UNBELIEF 

There is no unbelief ; 
Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod 
And waits to see it push away the clod — 

He trusts in God. 

There is no unbelief ; 
Whoever says, when clouds are in the sky, 
"Be patient, heart ; light breaketh by and by," 

Trusts the Most High. 

There is no unbelief ; 
Whoever lies down on his couch to sleep ; 
Content to lock each sense in slumber deep, 

Knows God will keep. 

There is no unbelief ; 
Whoever says, "to-morrow," "the unknown," 
"The future," trusts that Power alone 

He dares disown. 

Copied from Unity. — LlZZIE YORK CASE. 



28 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Many of the preachers in early Indiana were mis- 
sionaries and their visits were far between. A 
notable example of this fact is that of young Lincoln, 
who waited so long for the preacher to come and 
pay the last loving tribute to his mother. 

A powerful influence among the preachers of 
early Indiana was John McElroy Dickey, who 
worked in Clark and Daviess Counties as early as 
1812. 

Henry Ward Beecher began preaching at Law- 
renceburg early enough to be called a pioneer, and 
later for almost a decade delivered some of his great- 
est sermons during his pastorate in Indianapolis. 

Lyman Abbott preached in Terre Haute during 
the Civil War. He has lately recorded this experi- 
ence in a series of articles in The Outlook. 

The religion of to-day speaks for itself in the 
church spires which point upward in every hamlet 
and city in the state. They bear witness that ''man 
can not live by bread alone," and are themselves 
symbols of a worthy past in which missionaries and 
preachers of all denominations, and earnest men and 
women made sacrifices and counted their lives as 
nothing in order that they might minister to the re- 
ligious life. 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 29 



DR. DAVID HERVEY MAXWELL 

Torch Bearer Among the Founders of 
Indiana University 

Dr. David Hervey Maxwell performed the office 
of the beloved physician and gave his time and best 
energies as guardian of the interests of education in 
Indiana. He was born in Kentucky in 1786. His 
parents, like many other settlers of that state, came 
from Virginia over the Blue Ridge Mountains. 
Dr. Maxwell was educated at Danville, Kentucky. 
He studied medicine under the famous surgeon, Dr. 
Ephraim McDowell. In 1810 he came to Hanover, 
in Indiana territory, and practiced medicine here and 
at Madison for nine years. During this time he an- 
swered to the call of public service as surgeon in the 
war of 1812, also in the ranger service, traveling 
through the Wabash region to Vincennes, Fort Har- 
rison and the Mississinewa. 

When Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1816, 
authorizing an election for delegates to determine 
whether or not a state government could be formed 
in Indiana territory, Dr. Maxwell was elected dele- 
gate to this convention from Jefferson County. His 
next public service was the part he took in framing 
the Constitution at Cory don. His life up to this time, 
his knowledge of men, affairs and government, fit- 
ted him eminently for this work in the new state. 



30 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

He then declared himself for freedom, though he 
had earlier been a slave-holder. He drafted the 
clause which prohibited slavery in the state of In- 
diana. While he was interested in all the measures 
that would be conducive to a strong state govern- 
ment, nearest to him was Article IX, which made it 
the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as cir- 
cumstances would permit, to enact by law a general 
system of education, ascending in a regular grada- 
tion from a township school to a state university, 
which shall be gratis and equally open to all. The 
carrying out of this enactment occupied the thought 
of Dr. Maxwell during his remaining life. It might 
be mentioned also that the first Constitution now 
stands in his handwriting. When President Madi- 
son designated a township in the county of Monroe 
for the use of a seminary of learning, Dr. Maxwell 
turned his attention to that place and made his home 
there. 

At the fourth session of the General Assembly 
of Indiana, which convened December 6, 1819-20, 
Dr. Maxwell set out on horseback to the capitol at 
Corydon for the purpose of procuring, if possible, 
the location of the state seminary at Bloomington. 
He was a personal friend of Governor Jennings and 
had many acquaintances among the members of the 
Legislature who had sat with him in the Constitu- 
tional Convention at Corydon in 1816. That he was 
a successful lobbyist is shown by the act passed on 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 31 

January 20, 1820, establishing the state seminary at 
a point in what was Perry Township. The physical 
condition of the country, the social environment of 
the people, the illiteracy and poverty of the masses, 
all made the courage of the few to press on to the 
establishment of educational laws seem gigantic. 

Six men, one of whom was Dr. Maxwell, were 
named as members of the Board of the State Semi- 
nary. He was made its presiding officer and occu- 
pied this position almost without break through his 
remaining life. 

Dr. Maxwell sought election to the Legislature 
solely that he might advance the interests of the 
State Seminary. He again made a journey to Cory- 
don on horseback as a member of the General As- 
sembly in the House of Representatives from Mon- 
roe County. He was now thirty-five years of age, 
of slight build, fair, straight, and stood "six feet in 
his stockings." He is described as dignified, easy 
in conversation, courteous and kindly in manner, 
liberal and judicious in view. At the sixth session 
of the Legislature Dr. Maxwell was still serving 
on the education committee, as well as on the com- 
mittee on ways and means. He was again returned 
to the House of Representatives at the eighth and 
ninth assemblies. In 1826 and 1829 he represented 
the counties of Monroe, Greene and Owen in the 
State Senate. Here he is again on the ways and 
means committee and on the committee of education, 



32 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

which he gallantly guarded at all times, and especially 
looked out for the State Seminary. In 1828, January 
24, the name of the State Seminary was changed to 
Indiana College. Dr. Maxwell was said to have been 
the essential man in bringing this about. In 1835 
and 1836 he was made a member of the State Board 
of Internal Improvements, and was its president. In 
1840, under President Tyler, he became postmaster 
of Bloomington, and was reappointed under Presi- 
dent Taylor. He was connected with the College 
and the University of Indiana from 1820 to 1854, 
and has been designated as the founder of Indiana 
University. One of the university buildings is 
named Maxwell Hall. He died in Bloomington May 
24, 1854, and well deserves the name, Torch Bearer 
Among the Founders of Indiana University. 



CALEB MILLS 

Torch Bearer in Establishing Free Public 
Schools in Indiana 

"A sower came forth to sow." 

The year 1833 was alike memorable in the life of 
Caleb Mills and for the state of Indiana. In this 
year Caleb Mills finished his college training at the 
Andover Theological Seminary, having been gradu- 
ated at Dartmouth in 1828. In this year he was 
married to Sarah Marshall, an educated woman liv- 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 33 

ing near his home at Dunbarton, New Hampshire, 
where he was born in 1806. In this year, 1833, he 
brought his bride, after a six weeks' journey by way 
of canal and stage-coach, to the Wabash region in 
Montgomery County, Indiana. In the last month 
of this same year he began with twelve students as 
first teacher and principal of the school in Craw- 
fordsville, which was later to become Wabash Col- 
lege. The year 1833 was a memorable one for Indi- 
ana in that a sower had come forth to sow the seeds 
of enlightenment and knowledge which would choke 
out the ignorance and superstition abounding in the 
state to which he had come. 

Neither the purpose in the mind of Caleb Mills 
nor the region to which he had come was new to 
him. The inception of his life work in the interests 
of public education dated back some years. He had 
been Sunday-school missionary in northern Ken- 
tucky and southern Indiana, coming as far north as 
Crawfordsville, where he had a college friend, Ed- 
mund O. Hovey. The illiteracy which he met on 
every side appalled him and he kept turning the 
question of free public education over in his mind 
and trying to devise means to bring it about. He 
wrote to Mr. James Thompson before coming to 
Crawfordsville that he considered one of the neces- 
sary objects in the founding of a school was to train 
teachers to educate the common people, and when 
Wabash College was chartered its name was writ- 



34 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

ten, "Wabash Manual Labor College and Seminary 
for Teachers." Both parts of this name have great 
significance. The first of these, showing a concep- 
tion of the dignity of labor; and the second part, em- 
bodying Mills's idea of providing means for public 
education. If this were to be an account of Wabash 
College instead of what Mills did for public educa- 
tion in Indiana, there would be many interesting 
stories to relate of him ; how he brought to his task 
the New England conscience, religious devotion, and 
the hardihood developed in the wresting a living 
from the New Hampshire hills. We might tell of 
his Greek professorship; of his work for the college 
library; of his marvelous influence over young men, 
and of his thrift in the home, where, upon a salary 
of four hundred dollars a year, he lived comfort- 
ably, gave his three children, who survived out of 
a circle of seven, a good education, and met all the 
charitable demands made upon him, which were 
many. It has been handed down as a tradition at 
Wabash how Mills and Hovey and the founders 
of the college knelt in the snow and consecrated 
their lives to the work of education and the service 
of their Master. The students of Caleb Mills re- 
member how he upheld the cause of freedom in '61 
and said, "The college may fail, but the Union shall 
not fail." In answer to the call for troops every 
member of the senior class except one, an invalid, 
volunteered, Mills's own son among the number, 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 35 

while the father asked for a place as chaplain. These 
facts all show what manner of man this sower was. 
Skipping the thirteen years from the beginning of 
Mills's work in Indiana, in 1833 to the year 1846, 
we find no diminution of purpose; instead he talked 
in season and out of season to his students and on 
the street corners and to his friends at home on his 
beloved theme of free public education. In this year, 
1846, he began a most novel and effective scheme 
for carrying out his purpose, through a series of six 
pamphlets, addressed to the succeeding legislatures 
of Indiana. These pamphlets were headed, "Read, 
Circulate and Discuss," and were signed, "By One 
of the People." The authorship of these pamphlets 
was not known for a long time except to some of 
Mills's intimate friends through whose generosity 
they were published. These papers reveal remark- 
able clearness, profound insight, the needs of the 
situation, and the means whereby the ends sought 
could be brought about. He discusses the awful 
state of illiteracy and the means for overcoming it. 
Mr. Charles W. Moores, in his book, "Caleb Mills 
and the Indiana School System," gives the following 
summary of the arguments made by Mr. Mills : ( 1 ) 
The raising of adequate revenues (a) by means of 
a poll tax to enlist individual interest, and (b) an 
ad valorem tax to enlist property interests; (2) the 
securing of competent teachers by means of suitable 
normal training, supervision and better salaries; 



36 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

(3) proper text-books; (4) an aroused public inter- 
est that would demand the maintenance of good 
schools; (5) a state superintendent to direct the 
school system, and (6) an affiliation of all institu- 
tions for higher education under state supervision 
and control as a single great state university, with 
common and higher standards of admission and 
graduation, and degrees that would have a recog- 
nized value among schoolmen and men of learning. 
These papers were kindly in tone, logical in pres- 
entation, convincing in argument, and at last bore 
fruit from the seed which the sower had sown. This 
was proved in the election of October, 1848, when 
a majority of 16,636 was registered in favor of free 
education in Indiana. In 1854 Mr. Mills was made 
superintendent of public instruction in Indiana, be- 
ing the second to occupy that office. As state super- 
intendent he had become known as the author of 
the "Read, Circulate and Discuss" papers, and his 
word carried weight wherever it was spoken. If 
Caleb Mills were here to-day he would be moved by 
the great army of teachers carrying out his scheme 
of free public education and by the tens of thou- 
sands of school children, seated in comfortable, well- 
equipped school-houses, learning the meaning of the 
word country, being taught the duties of citizenship, 
and engaged in acquiring the art of industry by 
which they will be enabled to take their places among 
the producers of the world. We who behold this 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 37 

spectacle of democratic education in Indiana can 
but think back to the memorable year of 1833 in 
our history, when a sower came forth to sow the 
seeds of enlightenment and knowledge in our midst. 



MOTHER THERESE GUERIN 

Who Lighted the Torch for the Higher Educa- 
tion of Woman Along the Wabash in Indiana 

"Let us make no account of our personal feelings 
except to sacrifice them." 

This was the maxim of Mother Guerin, who 
brought with her five Sisters of Providence from 
France to begin the education of woman in the 
wilderness of Indiana seventy-seven years ago. 
Mother Guerin was a born leader. She had been 
decorated by the Academy of France, and carried 
under her frail exterior an intrepid and devout 
spirit. No one can realize what sacrifices she made 
and how difficult living out her maxim was. She 
came to Indiana in answer to a call from the Bishop 
of Vincennes. Her journal tells of the pangs of 
parting as the shores of her beloved France faded 
from sight, and of the perilous voyage of forty 
days before she reached New York, and of the fol- 
lowing seventeen days by way of stage coach to 
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Fredericksburg and Wheel- 
ing; thence on the Ohio to Cincinnati, thence to 



38 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Madison, and from there by coach to the banks of 
the Wabash, after fifty-seven days from the time 
they left France. 

Upon their arrival at Terre Haute, the evening of 
October 22, 1840, accompanied by Father Buteux, 
they drove for some hours over the rough roads. 
Just as dark came on they stopped in the midst of 
a dense forest, and the kind father announced that 
they had reached their destination. Great was their 
astonishment when they looked about and at first 
saw not a house in sight. Just beyond a rugged ra- 
vine, however, they soon found a log cabin with a 
shed attached. This was to be their lodging until 
their house was completed. Here, indeed, was the 
cradle of the great St. Mary's Academy. 

The sisters had to learn the language of the new 
country and direct and assist in the work of clear- 
ing the site for the new school and in pushing for- 
ward the work in every way, even going so far as 
to help in rolling the logs to be used in the structure 
of some of the original buildings. The work was 
slow, and a less valiant band would have been over- 
come by discouragement, but Mother Guerin was 
the life and soul of every effort. "If it is God's 
work," she said repeatedly, "we can not fail. We 
must make a beginning and trust to Providence." 

In a year after her arrival Mother Guerin opened 
her six-room brick building as a boarding school for 
girls, and in 1841, on July 4, the day of the great 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 39 

Declaration of Independence, the first pupil came. 
The next few days brought four more, and others 
followed soon. The dream of Mother Guerin and 
her co-workers began to take shape in reality. 

Mother Guerin sought the advice of missionaries 
in Cincinnati and Louisville as to the best manner 
of conducting the school, and this assistance, to- 
gether with her own valuable experience in France, 
where she had taught seventeen years in one of the 
largest schools, made her competent to cope with 
trying situations in her new field. 

Mother Guerin was not satisfied to make St. 
Mary's a mere boarding school. It was her ambi- 
tion from its earliest inception to make it an insti- 
tution for the higher education of woman. The 
Indiana Legislature in 1846 granted a charter where- 
by the school was permitted to confer degrees upon 
its pupils when the progress of the institution au- 
thorized this. 

Mother Guerin desired to extend the good work 
of St. Mary's throughout the state, and from time 
to time branch schools were established in various 
places until to-day there is scarcely a community of 
any size where one can not find a school under the 
direction of the Sisters of Providence. 

St. Mary's of the Woods has met with many 
trials and great vicissitudes, but the spirit of Mother 
Guerin, that spirit of self-sacrifice and patient perse- 
verance, has brought it through every difficulty. It 



40 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

comprises a tract of six hundred acres and an impos- 
ing array of buildings equal to the needs of its many 
departments. A beautiful white stone church, the 
central figure in a semicircle of buildings, presents 
an imposing front as one approaches it through 
the long driveway that leads through the avenue of 
sturdy trees of primeval growth. A convent build- 
ing, a dormitory, a gymnasium, a pharmacy, a laun- 
dry and other buildings house the academy to-day. 
A new hall, the Anne Therese Guerin Hall, shelters 
students who desire professional training. St. 
Mary's is now accredited as a standard college by 
the Indiana State Department of Education, and the 
number of students increases yearly. 

To look upon the great institution of learning as 
it stands to-day, it takes, indeed, quite a stretch of 
imagination to carry one back to the little cabin that 
sheltered its small beginning amid the primitive for- 
ests of our beloved state. 

The work of Mother Guerin has to-day more than 
fulfilled any dream she could have had — and all this 
has come about by a marvelous persistence and de- 
votion of her followers to the work she began in 
such trust and faith. While Mother Guerin was 
working at her task in Indiana, Mary Lyon, another 
pioneer of woman's education in America, was 
planting the seeds for Mount Holyoke College, 
in Massachusetts, and, like Mother Guerin, Mary 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 41 

Lyon's seed has borne fruitage beyond any concep- 
tion she may have had. What America owes to 
these two women in the cause of education can not 
be overestimated. 

"St. Mary's of the Woods," the educational insti- 
tution, is a noble monument to the untiring labor 
of the delicate, refined little French woman who 
braved every hardship and overcame what seemed 
unsurmountable obstacles to carry on in the new 
land her educational ideals for woman. 



WILLIAM A. WIRT 
Torch Bearer of the New Education at Gary 

The blue waters of Lake Michigan extend to the 
sky-line on the north. To the south stretch three 
miles of barren, ancient, shifting sand hills with 
here and there a scrub oak. An engineer stands by 
the water's edge. As he looks over Lake Michigan, 
he sees in his imagination, the great barges coming 
in laden with coal and ore from the Superior region ; 
he sees, as in a dream, ten miles of steel plant with 
tower-like chimneys belching forth columns of 
smoke, and coke ovens all aglow. Thousands of 
men go in and out, each working at an appointed 
task. The engineer turns his back upon the lake, 
and looks over the ground about him. He sees cot- 
tages springing up and banks and business buildings 



42 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

and schools and libraries, all of which are a part of 
his work. 

Later, another man appears. He is to be the 
mayor of the future town of Gary. As he ponders, 
the school man, William A. Wirt, arrives. Mr. 
Wirt's imagination, like that of the engineer, is also 
constructive. He sees little children that can be 
made into good citizens. He sees the great possi- 
bility in an untrammelled situation where new 
theories and practices can be worked out. He has 
already come to the conclusion that education is 
dynamic and not static, that the beginning has 
scarcely been made. His theories, like those of the 
engineer, are based on scientific principles in obedi- 
ence to the laws of waste and economy and effi- 
ciency. He has reached the point where he can see 
the defects in the present educational system with- 
out being a pessimist. The educational future is full 
of hope and triumph to him. 

As he recites his views to the future mayor of 
Gary, the two men become deeply interested in each 
other, and the mayor sees the whole school system 
from a new point of view. 

Mr. Wirt was not seeking employment that day, 
but what he said lodged in the heart of the future 
mayor, and later, one of the first things this mayor 
did, after he had taken the oath of office, was to 
tender the super intendency of the Gary schools to 
this man, William A. Wirt. 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 43 

The offer was accepted. When Mr. Wirt reached 
Gary, to enter upon his new duties, he was proudly 
shown the recently built school house, and told that 
it was constructed on the most modern American 
plan. ''Exactly, that's just what's the matter with 
it," said Mr. Wirt. He began the transforming 
process, and to-day, at the end of eleven years, the 
Wirt system of education is known over the world. 

The life of the child is to him too sacred to be 
cast into set molds before an opportunity for growth 
has been given. One of the strong points of the 
system is that the children can make try-outs along 
several lines, in order to find out what appeals to 
them. After making a choice, the pupil is encour- 
aged to put forth effort in that particular line until 
some sort of satisfactory results are shown. This 
does not mean, of course, that a student can not drop 
a line of work after he has done something in it, 
but he must stand by his choice long enough to fos- 
ter steadiness of purpose. Having made his try- 
outs and fixed upon a line of work, he pursues it 
with the principles of strictest business. If he is 
working on material for the home, he determines 
costs and measurements. If he is working on foods, 
he studies prices and values. If he is engaged in 
gardening, he begins with the preparation of the 
soil and follows the seed from its planting, through 
its growth and fruitage, from which he gathers the 
seed for next year. In this process he has done 



44 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

more than fill in his time. He has become acquainted 
with the on-going processes of nature. 

His application lessons are games, giving outward 
expression to the studies. Through these games the 
foreigners make wonderful strides in the use of 
English and are able to communicate with their 
classmates. 

The atmosphere of freedom and joy prevails in 
these schools. Consequently, there is very little ab- 
sence and even on vacation days the children come 
flocking back for work. The play impulse is de- 
veloped through all manner of games, gymnastics 
and swimming. 

One of the most important things in connection 
with the Gary schools is the making of American 
citizens out of foreigners. The children are made 
acquainted with the naturalization papers, learn the 
oath of citizenship, study the Constitution of the 
United States, and the Constitution of Indiana. On 
this account, Gary has been called the "Melting 
Pot." 

The home is brought in touch with the school 
through its registration by neighborhoods instead of 
by grades. This method has a great advantage in 
that each child in a neighborhood group knows all 
the children in his group and is able to keep the 
school informed and is himself socialized. 

The school is the social center for its patrons who 
gather there for recreation. Its night schools num- 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 45 

ber seventeen hundred adults, who receive instruc- 
tion free of charge, except for material. 

The music is an element of joy to all, in that the 
national airs of the different Fatherlands are sung, 
and a feeling for the past is respected. Nor is art 
forgotten, especially clay work, where the children 
love the potter's wheel. 

In point of economy, William Wirt makes one 
school plant do the work done by two heretofore, 
with no added expense. Before he came to Gary, 
he advocated the all-year-round school, and here, 
he said to the citizens, ''Would your steel plant pay 
if it were idle half the time? No less can a school 
plant be efficient where children stay away half the 
time, and this involves a proper utilization of the 
child's play time." He has won a reputation be- 
cause of his plans for the education of delinquents. 
He lays great stress upon the value of the senses as 
avenues for reaching the mind. 

Because he speaks of educational theories in the 
terms of business, Mr. Wirt has been called the 
schoolmaster engineer. He applies business theories 
of waste, economy and efficiency to education, as has 
been said, and uses the steel mills as an example to 
show that there must be returns from expenditures 
of money and energy involved; and that the machin- 
ery of the school, like the machinery of the steel 
plant, must make the largest possible yield from raw 
material. 



46 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Mr. Wirt is so absorbed in his school system that 
he himself is in the background. He was born on 
a farm at Markle, Indiana, in 1874. He was edu- 
cated at DePauw and Chicago Universities. He had 
studied the school systems of England, Belgium, 
France and Germany, taking unto himself what was 
best in each. He has for two years divided his time 
between Gary and New York, where he has tried, 
in a cosmopolitan population, the methods of Gary, 
which is an industrial center. 

Gary has just passed her first decade and her 
school experiment harks a long way back to the 
Owen experiment in southern Indiana a hundred 
years ago, where Judge David B. Banta says, 
"There was carried on in New Harmony in 1828 
an unchartered, unendowed university." 



JAMES H. SMART 
Torch Bearer in Technical Education 

During the past hundred years, the giant trees 
of Indiana have disappeared, the ground has been 
made ready for the plow, the crops have been gath- 
ered. Cities have sprung up; education, law, re- 
ligion, letters and art have become a part of the daily 
life, and we have reason for rejoicing; but we also 
have reason for regrets. We have not treated our 
soil right, nor acted as good stewards over the little 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 47 

bit of earth which each man has been pleased to call 
his for the space of a lifetime. We have been reck- 
lessly extravagant with our timber, and now we 
are at the point of trying to replace it; we have 
overworked our soil, and now realize the value 
of fertilizing it, and of the rotation of crops, with 
a knowledge of what each crop takes from and 
leaves in the soil. We are late in learning how to 
grow fruit and to care for it, how to multiply our 
dairy products, increase the value of our animals 
and raise better specimens, how to take better care 
of fowls and make them greater egg producers. 

All these are still questions of food, shelter and 
clothing, but there has come into consideration an- 
other question — full of hope — the making of men 
along with all this mastery that leads to physical 
prosperity. One can not visit the county institutes of 
Indiana and see the stereopticon slides showing the 
prize schools of agriculture, where lads exhibit the 
result of their labors in the raising of ninety bushels 
of corn or one hundred bushels where half that many 
grew before, or of potatoes where the finest spec- 
imens of the best quality produce a like increase 
of yield, or see them pointing to their animals, which 
are specimens of health and the result of intelligent 
care, without realizing that a new element has come 
into education. This is the making of men, who re- 
spect law and learn truth from nature and its proc- 
esses; men who have come to a new sense of man's 



48 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

relation to the earth and all of its forces. These 
young men are sound of body and clean of soul, 
and one can not help but feel that in the gaining of 
one end many others are accomplished. Saying 
nothing of electricity, engineering in all of its 
phases, the making of master mechanics, look at 
the science of household and domestic art. See how 
the homes have been improved by simplicity in taste, 
better use made of colors, and, as a rule, more be- 
fitting styles of dress. The table, which is now the 
only gathering place for the average family, has 
been improved in a marvelous way. The placing 
of the food upon it, the law of dietetics observed in 
the preparation of the food, the law of economy ob- 
served in its outlay, all tend to brighten the home 
and make the table a place where the whole family 
not only enjoy a hearty meal but enjoy, too, the in- 
terchange of ideas. 

These are only a few of the facts that indicate 
the trend of modern technical education which in 
Indiana has for its center Purdue University, a part 
of the State system of public education. Its in- 
fluence reaches over the entire State. There is 
scarcely a county without its group of students ex- 
perimenting along one of a dozen lines in agricul- 
tural farming. Here and there over the State are 
experiment stations for the manufacture of serum 
and the study of bacteria. In almost every rural 
community one may attend lectures on agriculture 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 49 

or visit farmers' institutes. Here the interest is not 
confined to the younger members of the vicinity, 
but to those older as well. Elderly men speak of 
scientific farming with pride and discuss home eco- 
nomics with intelligence. If one wants to know how 
to raise alfalfa or any other crop or vegetable, all 
he has to do is to write to Purdue University, from 
which bulletins will be sent free of charge. These 
contain minute directions along the lines of the in- 
formation sought. The housewife can learn to 
make better butter, how to can fruits and vegetables, 
care for fowls, cook meat and make bread, and as 
a result time is saved, money is saved, leisure is 
secured and opportunity is given for outlay in the 
line of the higher wants. We say higher wants, 
meaning the larger life that comes from being free 
to be interested in the State in which one lives, in 
his nation, and in the whole world. 

The torch bearer in this new education, James 
H. Smart, was elected president of Purdue Univer- 
sity in 1883. For six years before this he had been 
superintendent of public instruction in Indiana. 
This work had given him great insight into the edu- 
cational needs of the state and fitted him in a pe- 
culiar way for promoting the ends toward which 
Purdue University then tended. 

Technical education, as Mr. Smart understood it, 
was in its infancy when he took up the work. Dur- 
ing his seventeen years of administration at Purdue 



50 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

the school grew in the number and variety of 
courses, in its scope of study in each course and in 
its efficiency. At the time of his death Purdue Uni- 
versity was known over the United States for the 
earnest, efficient, sober-minded men that it turned 
out, and its graduates had no trouble in securing po- 
sitions. This result of Mr. Smart's work at Purdue 
could not have been realized by a less able man. He 
brought to the university a large professional experi- 
ence gained from active teaching, directive work and 
the writing of educational theories in magazines and 
papers. 

He was the fifth president that Purdue had had, 
his predecessors each serving a short time. The 
institution was still formative, leaving him great op- 
portunity for shaping its future. The memory of 
John Purdue, whose generosity in the gift of land 
determined the location of the institution at Lafay- 
ette, was still fresh in mind. 

President Smart was alert to every opportunity 
for making Purdue what it ought to be. He had 
the power of unremitting toil, of keen insight, of 
scholarly training, of devotion to his task and an 
unfailing loyalty that not only started Purdue on 
its way to success but which also commanded the 
respect of educators in the United States. This is 
shown by his appointments to so many educational 
commissions in his own country and also to those 
of Paris in 1870 and Vienna in 1872. 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 51 

At the time of his death Benjamin Harrison said 
of him : 

"He had very lovable traits of character, and his 
intellectual equipment was of a very high order. 
He had the genius of common sense and a very rare 
and forceful executive ability, coupled with great 
suavity of manner. He was sincere and straight- 
forward, and won his ends because his purposes 
were disinterested and his plans supported by con- 
vincing reasons. His intercourse with his board 
of trustees, and with committees of the Legislature, 
was characterized by these qualities, and he rarely 
failed to get what he asked for in his work. He was 
not only an educator, but a fine accountant and fin- 
ancier. He could make a dollar do as much work 
as any man I ever knew. He had an excellent 
knowledge of men and selected his professors with 
a rare insight. His part was to plan and direct 
and above all to inspire. For, though of feeble 
health and with impaired sight, he worked without 
stint and communicated enthusiasm to all who 
worked with him. In his personal relations he was 
gentle and considerate — a good friend. He loved 
God and all of His creatures." 

Charles E. Wilson of Lafayette said: "Purdue 
University, with all of its varied, splendid and prac- 
tical ramifications, will remain a monument to the 
industry, foresight and integrity of James H. 
Smart." 



52 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 



ISAAC McCOY 

Torch Bearer as Baptist Missionary to 
the Indians 

Next to the French missionaries who came with 
trained minds and devoted souls to the wilderness of 
the Northwest to serve the cause of religion in car- 
rying the gospel of Christianity to the red men*, no 
name deserves greater respect than that of Isaac 
McCoy, Baptist missionary to the Indians. 

He was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 
in 1784; moved from there to Kentucky with his 
parents when he was a small boy, and lived in this 
state until manhood. His education was limited, 
but he was always studious, loved to read, and by the 
severe standards he set for himself had a distinc- 
tion over the young people that grew up around him. 
He compares his call to religion to that of St. Paul, 
who was overcome by the Light on the road to Da- 
mascus. Isaac McCoy said he was within a dark 
woods when a Light so bright appeared that he 
stopped to reckon the time, thinking it was the sud- 
den appearance of the sun, but soon all was dark. 
This Light, he always said, was his leading to the 
service of God. 

He came to Vincennes, Indiana, in 1804, and the 



* See Father Gibault, Chap. VI, in "Once Upon a Time in 
Indiana." 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 53 

next year, 1805, he went to Clark County, where he 
was licensed to preach. In 1810 he was ordained 
pastor of the Maria Creek Church, in Clark County 
of this state, where he remained eight years, mak- 
ing in the meantime missionary tours in the sur- 
rounding country. In 1817 he was made mission- 
ary by the Baptist Church. In 1842 he became the 
first secretary and general agent of the American 
Indian Mission Association, at Louisville, Kentucky, 
where he remained until his death. He published a 
history of the Baptist Indian Missions, Washing- 
ton, D. C, in 1840. 

These are the facts given in the Encyclopaedia, 
without embellishment, but rich indeed must be the 
imagination that could fill out all the experiences 
of the wonderful life of Isaac McCoy. To such 
meager data must be added accounts from his jour- 
nal, which is full of incidents experienced as he went 
up and down the land. He visited Indian villages 
and chiefs and ministered to the homes. He gives 
a picturesque account of his visit to Anderson town, 
named for Chief Anderson. He found this old man 
in comfort and living in state. As night came on 
fifteen squaws made their appearance, each one 
loaded with as much firewood as she could carry 
on her back. After all had placed the wood in order, 
Chief Anderson then gave them a hearty supper 
and a present of some food to take away with them, 
and they departed in happiness. 



54 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

One little incident shows how the people of early 
Indiana valued the work of Isaac McCoy. A woman 
with a babe in her arms and a lktle daughter of 
eleven at her side walked forty miles in order to 
place the daughter in his mission school. 

Isaac McCoy, throughout his life, at all times gave 
due credit to the help given him by his wife in car- 
rying out his work. This couple had always been 
one in purpose. Indeed, Mrs. McCoy knew well the 
Indian character. During her girlhood in Kentucky 
she and her mother, with the other children of the 
family, were carried away to the far North by the 
Indians, but were rescued after a time and taken 
back. The story of Mrs. McCoy's life is heroic in 
the extreme. She took the Indian children into her 
home, at one time having as many as twelve; here 
she cared for them exactly as though they were her 
own; she wove the cloth and made their clothes; 
she nursed them through sickness, and taught them 
besides. She took care of the settlement when her 
husband was absent, and oftentimes went on jour- 
neys in his place, riding on horseback, her babe in 
her arms. It is recorded that she once was caught 
overnight and camped out alone in the dark woods. 

Another person who helped Isaac McCoy in the 
Indian mission was a school teacher, a Mr. Lykins. 
His work was a service of love, and he followed his 
leader with sublime faithfulness through all the vi- 
cissitudes and disappointments that beset the under- 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 55 

taking. Nothing could make him falter in his duty 
to the Indian children, and every act that he did 
bears evidence of conscientiousness in the perform- 
ance of duty well done. 

After five years of missionary work, early in the 
year 1822, Mr. and Mrs. McCoy, Mr. Lykins and 
Mr. Dusenbury agreed upon a set of "Family 
Rules," in imitation of the Baptist missionaries at 
Serampore, India. The list contained twelve rules, 
and they were approved by the Mission Board in 
session, after having been carefully read twice. 
They declare in strong terms of consecration, as 
follows: "1. We agree that our object in becom- 
ing missionaries is to ameliorate the condition of 
the Indians and not to serve ourselves. 2. We agree 
that our whole time, talents and labors shall be dedi- 
cated to the obtaining of this object, and shall all 
be bestowed gratis, so that the mission can not be- 
come indebted to any missionary for his or her serv- 
ices. 3. We agree that all remittances from the 
Board of Missions, and all money and property ac- 
cruing to any of us by salaries from government, 
by smith shops, by schools, by donations, or from 
whatever quarter it may arise, shall be thrown into 
the common missionary fund and be sacredly ap- 
plied to the cause of this mission." 

Isaac McCoy's work was filled with disappoint- 
ments and troubles such as befall those who blaze 
a new way for serving the world. Followers fell 



56 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

away from him. Many who came to serve lacked 
the missionary spirit; false reports were given out; 
epidemics attacked them; the board failed in its 
proper supply of money; poverty's gaunt figure was 
ever before them; there were times when starvation 
was almost certain, and Mr. McCoy himself was 
handicapped by having to rely upon an interpreter 
for the Indian dialects, but nothing daunted him. 
He always appeared before the Board of Missions 
with new plans. At each disappointment he saw 
visions of success, and at last he was able to enter 
into the service of the American Board of Indian 
Missions. 

On a moss-covered slab in the cemetery at Louis- 
ville, Kentucky, is found the following inscription : 

REV. ISAAC McCOY 

Born June 13, 1784 
Died June 21, 1846 

For near thirty years his entire time and 
energies were devoted to the civil and relig- 
ious improvement of the aboriginal tribes of 
this country. He projected and founded the 
plan of their colonization, their only hope, 
and the imperishable monument of his wis- 
dom and benevolence. 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 57 

JOHN FINLEY CROWE 
Torch Bearer in Presbyterianism 

On a beautiful bluff at Hanover, Indiana, over- 
looking the Ohio, stands a little Presbyterian church 
built of stone taken out of the hillside. This church 
was the center of the Salem Presbytery, which then 
included Indiana and Illinois. Here John Finley 
Crowe, of Kentucky, was called as pastor in 1823. 
He, like the other preachers of that day, was filled 
with the missionary spirit, and before this time, in 
1819, had come over from Kentucky to Corydon 
and founded a Presbyterian Church. He was also 
one of the ministers present at the first synodical 
meeting ever held west of the state of Ohio and 
north of the Mason and Dixon's line. This body 
included representatives from ''nearly all there was 
of Presbyterianism in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, 
Michigan, the West and Northwest." 

On account of his frequent missionary tours, one 
of which extended into Indiana and Illinois, John 
Finley Crowe was called an "early missionary 
scout." The purpose in all these tours was to plant 
Presbyterian churches. 

The little church at Hanover was simply a com- 
munity house of worship where the neighboring 
families met, most of whom were of Scotch-Irish 
descent. John Finley Crowe shared the life of the 



58 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

people in his community. They were poor in this 
world's goods but rich in the faith that Indiana had 
before her a great future. 

This man was born June 16, 1787, in Greene 
County, Tennessee. His early boyhood knew the 
privations of pioneer life. At fifteen the family 
moved to Missouri, where, through the religious 
influence of the community, he became interested 
in Christianity and at twenty-one began to prepare 
for the ministry. He spent the year following his 
marriage at Princeton University. In 1815 he was 
licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New Bruns- 
wick, New Jersey. Returning to Kentucky he 
served several churches, had charge of a woman's 
seminary and edited the Abolition Intelligencer. 

John Finley Crowe represented the distinctive 
mark of Presbyterianism which was the close con- 
nection that should exist between religion and edu- 
cation. It is said that wherever the synod founded 
a church it planted a school. They never lost sight 
of the necessity for trained men in the ministry and 
made provision for training them. 

So it comes about that John Finley Crowe was 
not only an able preacher, but a great teacher. How 
to educate the Christian young men in the West was 
a question "of lonely thought and of long debate 
in Presbyterian circles." John Finley Crowe was 
the leader among the men thus interested, and to 
his credit is due the founding of what was to be 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 59 

Hanover College, which began with six boys in a 
log cabin which had been his loom house, and on the 
door of which one of his pupils prophetically wrote 
in jest "Hanover Academy." 

One of the great educational experiments of John 
Finley Crowe in the preparation of ministers was 
to afford to the young men an opportunity to earn 
their way by manual labor. For the carrying out 
of this plan, he himself gave fifty acres of land for 
the farming experiment, which was the first to fail. 
Later the activities in coopering and printing shared 
the same fate, not on account of defect in theory, 
but inability to carry out the practice. 

A memorial on freedom addressed to the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, by John Fin- 
ley Crowe, and adopted by the Synod of 1827, 
showed not only his own attitude toward freedom, 
but that of the Presbyterian Assembly. 

His grandson, Stanley M. Coulter, says of his 
grandfather, John Finley Crowe: 

My memories of my grandfather, John F. Crowe, 
while the unrelated ones of childhood, are none the 
less vivid and clear-cut. I remember him as a tall, 
superbly erect man, with strong and rather stern 
features. He was a natural leader and ruled with a 
strong hand. His grandchildren loved and respected 
him, but also stood in an extremely wholesome awe 
of him, an awe in which there was something of 
fear. He believed that children should be seen, not 



60 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

heard; that obedience should be immediate and un- 
questioning. He was the head of the home — and 
felt it his supreme duty to direct and guide. He was 
a Puritan of the Puritans. Nothing was ever per- 
mitted to interfere with family prayers, which were 
conducted morning and evening. In spite of his ap- 
parent harshness and severity, there was never a 
man more unselfish, more self-sacrificing, more af- 
fectionate. It was eagerness for the best welfare of 
his children and his children's children, coupled with 
his absolute convictions along religious lines, that 
caused his apparent sternness and severity. 

In the community he stood for the same type of 
life as in the home, and the impress of his person- 
ality, the persistence of his influence, is still felt in 
the college community which his foresight and his 
sacrifice called into being. He made relatively few 
friends — that is, warm, personal friends, admitted 
into his inner life — because he walked and acted by 
inner convictions, "led of God,'' as he would phrase 
it. He was magnificently persistent and courageous 
and self-sacrificing. In his work no adverse cir- 
cumstance caused him to swerve, no apparent defeat 
caused him to lose courage, and when financial 
straits arose, he gladly gave himself "poor" that the 
work might go on. He was the heart and soul of 
Hanover College, and although it was his creation 
he never allowed himself to be made president, fear- 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 61 

ing lest others might think he was devoted to self- 
advancement rather than the growth of the kingdom. 
I remember him walking about his home, to and 
from the college, silent, rarely smiling, somewhat 
stern — but to my childish mind, magnificent — as I 
imagined one of the prophets of Israel might have 
looked. I rejoice that I have felt somewhat myself 
of his persistent conviction driven soul, and that, as 
my grandfather, I can claim a man who in loneli- 
ness, in disappointments, through self-sacrifice 

"Worked in sad sincerity, 

Himself from God he could not free." 



JOHN STRANGE 

Who Carried the Circuit Rider's Torch in 
Early Indiana 

In Westminster Abbey under the effigy of John 
Wesley is inscribed the prophetic legend, "The 
whole world is my parish," and indeed the whole 
world did become his parish through the great army 
of followers to whom he handed on the torch of 
Methodism. Francis Asbury was his great agent 
in carrying this torch to the new world, where he 
himself consecrated hundreds of laymen to perfect 
his organization of circuit riders and presiding el- 
ders and bishops for the purpose of preaching the 



62 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

gospel. By far one of the readiest masters in elo- 
quence and enthusiasm in early Indiana was John 
Strange, the Methodist circuit rider, born in Vir- 
ginia in 1789. His father was a Methodist minis- 
ter before him. John Strange came riding into In- 
diana on the White Water circuit during the war 
of 1812. He often carried a gun on his shoulder 
for protection as he rode through the untracked 
wilderness. He had an intuitive mind and a poet's 
vision. The following is his own description of 
nature as his great teacher. He said: "My alma 
mater was Brush College, more ancient, though less 
pretentious, than Yale, Harvard or Princeton. Here 
I graduated, and I have her memory still. Her aca- 
demic groves are the boundless forests and prairies 
of those western wilds; her Pierian springs are the 
gushing fountains from rocks, from mountain fast- 
nesses; her Arcadian groves and Orphic scenes are 
the wild woods and the birds of every color and 
every sound, relieved now and then by hoots of the 
night owl and the weird treble of the whippoorwill ; 
her curriculum is the philosophy of nature and the 
mysteries of redemption; her library is the word of 
God, the discipline and the hymn book, supplemented 
with trees and brooks and stones, all of which are 
full of wisdom and sermons and speeches; and her 
parchments of literary honors are the horse and 
saddle-bags." 

Few men could have put their equipment for such 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 63 

a task as fell to the lot of John Strange in such 
poetic language. 

The White Water circuit upon which John 
Strange rode belonged to the Ohio Conference, and 
had been formed six years before by Joseph 
Oglesby, who set out from Hamilton, Ohio, came 
into Indiana by way of Fort Wayne and down the 
old Indian trail to Wayne County, thence toward 
Greensburg, and finally to Lawrenceburg, back to 
the place of starting. Joseph Oglesby is described 
as a powerful man, conforming outwardly to the 
dress of the early Methodists, and especially in the 
combing of his hair, which was cut close from the 
forehead back to the middle of the head, and from 
there his light hair hung in long ringlets to his 
shoulders. 

As John Strange rode up to the block-houses on 
his rounds, he was known to burst out in a song of 
thanks upon finding that all the people were alive 
and had been well since his last visit. He had such 
implicit faith in the protecting care of Providence 
that he greatly astonished people. Once when he 
lost a horse in the middle of his circuit he surprised 
the people at the next house he went to by answer- 
ing to their inquiries as to what he would do for a 
horse, he said, "That is my Master's business. I 
am in His service and He will provide me with a 
horse." And luckily enough, a horse was soon 
provided without inconvenience to John Strange. 



64 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Again, when offered the present of a house and lot 
by a friend, he refused it because he said he could 
not sing 

''No foot of land do I possess, 
No cottage in the wilderness." 

John Strange was easily first in oratorical power 
and his utter devotion to his Master's cause made 
him almost an object of adoration. He swayed audi- 
ences at will. Smith says : "By sudden exclamation 
he would thrill a whole congregation as by a shock 
of electricity." His oratory really merged into dra- 
matic action. He knew how to fasten his eyes upon 
a doubtful listener, and knew not only what word 
to say, but how to say it with great dramatic effect, 
which was especially powerful on the rougher ele- 
ment who came to scorn but in almost every case 
remained to pray. The severity which John Strange 
practiced regarding the plainness which he consid- 
ered a part of Methodism is shown in a speech to 
Edwin M. Ray. When Mr. Ray came to ask John 
Strange to perform his marriage ceremony the min- 
ister asked who the bride was. Upon being told, John 
Strange remarked that this young woman would 
never do, that her dresses were nothing but ruffles 
and frills. Mr. Ray informed him that he had not 
come to ask him concerning the selection of a wife, 
but to perform the marriage ceremony. This, of 
course, was done by Mr. Strange, and he lived to 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 65 

see that "the ruffles and frills" were mere externals 
to the beautiful character who filled out all the re- 
quirements of wife and mother. 

John Strange was presiding elder in Indiana from 
1824 to 1829. The presiding elders were mostly 
frontier preachers — men who were engrossed in 
their work, enduring its extreme hardships gladly, 
and usually sacrificing their lives. During the last 
years of his life, John Strange was a beneficiary of 
the Methodist Conference. He was buried in the 
old Greenlawn Cemetery at Indianapolis. A chapel 
is also named for him in this city. 



CHARLES OSBORN 

Torch Bearer in Quakerism — The First to Preach 
Immediate and Unconditional Emancipation 

Those who followed the star of abolition in the 
last part of the eighteenth and the early part of the 
nineteenth centuries in the United States were led 
by it to the altar of sacrifice. There they met per- 
secution, the loss of property, and even of life. 
Elijah Parish Love joy, in 1837, at the age of thirty- 
five, fell a martyr to the cause of anti-slavery. He 
was mobbed and killed at Alton, Illinois, while de- 
fending his press from which he had sent utterances 
in the interests of freedom. William Lloyd Garri- 
son, that peerless patriot, with perfect body, clean 



66 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

mind, penetrating vision, firm convictions and in- 
trepid courage to carry out those convictions regard- 
less of their cost, was dragged with a chain around 
his body through the streets of puritan Boston. 
Benjamin Lundy, whose name will be forever asso- 
ciated with that of William Lloyd Garrison, also 
met opprobrium and estrangement. 

The third man, Charles Osborn, who also fol- 
lowed the star of abolition and who belonged in this 
company is not mentioned in the annals of history. 
His name does not occur in Appleton's Cyclopaedia 
of American Biography. But it has been left for the 
Hon. George W. Julian of Indiana to rank him 
where he belongs. Mr. Julian has transferred the 
credit from Benjamin Lundy to Charles Osborn as 
the one who first proclaimed in the United States 
immediate, unconditional emancipation; and he was 
the one who first published an abolition journal, 
"The Philanthropist," at Mount Pleasant, Ohio, in 
1816. (See the Indiana Historical Society papers, 
volume 2, section 6, page 233, and following.) 

Charles Osborn was born of Quaker parentage 
in North Carolina in that memorable year of 1775. 
A few months before his birth the Concord fight 
had taken place, George Washington had taken 
command of the American army under the old elm 
tree at Cambridge, and Massachusetts was stirred 
by the patriotic utterances that had been thunder- 
ing forth in the state for ten years through the 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 67 

tongues of Adams and Otis and Warren. The 
Virginia House of Burgesses was also aroused un- 
der the enthusiastic, patriotic outbursts of Patrick 
Henry, who was foremost in calling the Continental 
Congress. 

In North Carolina, the birthplace of Charles Os- 
born, the first declaration of independence was de- 
clared at Charlotte, Mecklenberg County, in this 
year. One can imagine that the young Charles Os- 
born drew in the sentiments of American patriot- 
ism with his mother's milk. 

It is as a preacher in the Society of Friends that 
we first know him. At the age of nineteen he re- 
moved from North Carolina to Tennessee, where he 
first became acquainted with the evils of slavery, 
and there dedicated his life to the cause of freedom. 
In 1816 he came to Mount Pleasant, Ohio, where 
he was engaged in the publication of a religious 
paper. It was in this year that he sent out the pros- 
pectus for The Philanthropist, an abolition paper, 
and in a few months the first number of this paper 
itself appeared. Benjamin Lundy was his agent for 
"The Philanthropist" and a contributor to it, and 
it seemed as if through this work and these columns 
the great anti-slavery work of Lundy was intensified 
and the way made for his future publications. 

Three years after this Charles Osborn came to 
eastern Indiana and settled among the Friends in 
Wayne County. From his early life up to that time 



68 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

and afterward he belonged to the body of Orthodox 
Friends, and he had made a manful opposition to 
the theories of the followers of Elias Hicks, known 
as Hicksite Quakers. He was doomed to disap- 
pointment in his settlement among the Quakers of 
Indiana, for he found here great pro-slavery senti- 
ments. In 1842, when the anti-slavery question ran 
high and Henry Clay was candidate for the presi- 
dency of the Whig party, Mr. Clay came to the 
Yearly Meeting at Richmond, Indiana, and sat in 
that body. After the meeting Osborn heard many 
of the members of the Yearly Meeting tell Clay how 
they sympathized with pro-slavery sentiments; the 
great abolitionist had now reached his climax of 
disappointment, and, with others believing as he 
did, withdrew from the body. 

From Indiana he went northward into Michigan, 
and after a while he returned to Clear Lake, Porter 
County, of this state, where he remained the rest 
of his life. 

The three strong tenets in the doctrine of Charles 
Osborn were immediate unconditional emancipa- 
tion, the opposition to colonization of the freedmen 
— which Lundy advocated strongly and for which he 
made two trips to Hayti and also went to Texas in 
order to establish a freedmen's colony under the flag 
of Mexico, but was frustrated on account of the 
question of Texan annexation — his third tenet was 
against the use of the products of slave labor, ad- 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 69 

vocating the establishment of societies everywhere 
for the manufacture of free-labor products. Charles 
Osborn said that colonization was only a cradle in 
which anti-slavery rocked itself and found ease. 
While he was bold in his denunciation against slav- 
ery until past middle age, he approached the matter 
from the side of religion and appealed to the indi- 
vidual conscience for doing away with it rather than 
by political measures. He was pre-eminently a 
preacher in practice and theory. 

Indeed, slavery at the time of the birth of Charles 
Osborn was of rather minor consideration and taken 
for granted until after the invention of the cotton 
gin by Eli Whitney, when the real internal slave- 
trade of the United States began. Charles Osborn 
did not take the stand taken by Garrison, that slav- 
ery was intrenched in the Constitution of the United 
States. He did not attack this document. 

Other Quakers than those of Wayne County were 
also active in Indiana at this early time. The his- 
tory of Henry County shows that in 1838 a joint 
meeting of the Friends of Henry and neighboring 
counties formed anti-slavery societies with auxili- 
aries; and when the annals of the contribution made 
by the Quakers to the cause of freedom are thor- 
oughly understood, it will be found that these peo- 
ple, who believed in the inner light, proved to the 
world by their quiet protest the great doctrine of 
peace. These Quakers, it will be found, came mostly 



70 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

from the same state of Charles Osborn, North Caro- 
lina. It has been asked why so many Quakers went 
to North Carolina, and this tradition is told of the 
cause : After the revolutionary war Benjamin 
Franklin had assisting him on his Gazette a man 
whom he found difficult to place. He finally sent 
him south as a correspondent, and the result was 
that such charming letters were written about west- 
ern North Carolina that Quakers began immediately 
to go thither until numbers of them made their home 
there. When the slavery agitation came on, descend- 
ants of these same people, true to the convictions of 
their doctrine, found that they could not remain 
under the atmosphere of the deadly evil of slavery 
and many of them at once freed their slaves and 
brought them to southwestern Ohio and to eastern 
Indiana. 

The people of Indiana surely owe to the Hon. 
George W. Julian a great debt in placing this man, 
Charles Osborn, where he belongs, in the foremost 
ranks of abolition, and we surely owe to Mr. Os- 
born himself a great debt for the fearless announce- 
ment of his views and his fearless course as torch 
bearer of immediate unconditional emancipation. 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 71 



oscar c. Mcculloch 

Torch Bearer as Founder of a Modern In- 
stitutional Church 

"All can raise the flower now 
For all have got the seed." 

With the same missionary spirit that inspired 
Isaac McCoy; with the ardor that carried John 
Strange to the door of the pioneer cabin; with the 
knowledge that education and religion should not be 
separated, preached by John Finley Crowe ; with the 
same devotion to freedom that led Charles Osborn 
to advocate immediate, unconditional emancipation, 
came Oscar C. McCulloch to the city of Indianap- 
olis in 1877, to found an institutional church. At 
the end of the fourteen years of his intensely active 
life in this city he left a church which embodied his 
ideas of practical Christianity. He himself spoke 
of this church as "A House of Life," "The Open 
Door," "The Church of the Divine Fragments," 
where all might have a more "Abundant Life." 

His biographer says : 

"He brought to his work a soul born of God and 
in communion with him ; a mind cleared and lighted 
by the divine ray; a heart susceptible to gracious 
love and tender pity, and lips touched as with the 
finger of God. 

"He came with a great message upon his heart, 



72 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

the weight of which never lifted, and the word of 
which was Life. Men, women and children were to 
live a higher, broader, deeper and sweeter life. 

"He believed himself not only commissioned to 
preach, but chosen and sent. The voice of God in 
his own soul was immanent and conclusive. To 
preach its Word, without hesitation or apology, ac- 
cepting the consequences, was both his glad priv- 
ilege and his high and sacred duty. 

"The voice from his pulpit was never uncertain, 
but always clear, confident, strong; proclaiming the 
words of life and hope, of truth and soberness, as 
they came warm and fresh from the heart of God. 
That simple life lived in far-off Judea was a per- 
petual charm to his imagination, and laid a spell 
upon his heart that was never broken. To come to 
Jesus was to believe what he said, to make actual 
his thoughts, and to apply his principles in daily 
life. The Sermon on the Mount was to be lived 
— lived in the home, the office, the shop, the field, 
the street, by the roadside, wherever men and 
women meet their kind. Trade, politics, law, medi- 
cine, industry, all rest on great nature-principles, 
which, springing out of the Divine Heart, take on 
his name. It is this that transfigures life, makes it 
more than a scramble. 

"The conditions of membership in his church 
were made as simple as the invitation, 'Come, fol- 
low me.' The response required was nothing fur- 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 73 

ther than the old answer, 'I will leave all and follow 
Thee.' 'Come,' he said. 'But we are not Christians.' 
'Well, take up the Christian idea; resolve to live by 
the Christian principle of holding your life high 
above low passions, and for the service of others, 
and you will become Christians.' 

"He welcomed every authentic word of science as 
news from God. All history was to him the fulfill- 
ment of prophecy. Every great truth set in litera- 
ture or sung by poet was sacred scripture, an in- 
spired word. The Bible was the great literary and 
historical treasure-house of the race. Its message 
was true not because it was there, but there because 
it was true. The Spirit that gave it forth has spoken 
its word in all generations." 

Beneath the roof of Plymouth Church, on every 
day in the week, spiritual activities went on under 
the name of Plymouth Institute. Young men and 
young women who had been busy through the day 
gathered in the evening to study the poets, Shake- 
speare, Tennyson, Browning, Dante and Homer. 
Through successive years there were classes in 
Plato, Mazzini, Carlyle, Tolstoy, Ruskin and 
Goethe. 

Children who had left school at an early age 
came to pursue the common branches : spelling, writ- 
ing, reading and arithmetic. 

Groups gathered for the study of music under 
competent leaders. Evening classes in mechanical 



74 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

drawing were conducted, and through the bounty of 
a member of the church, Stoughton A. Fletcher, 
twelve benches and twelve sets of tools were pur- 
chased and installed in a neighboring high school. 
This marks the beginning of manual training in 
Indianapolis. 

Classes in German and French gave opportunities 
for learning modern languages. 

One of the great patriotic educational agencies of 
Plymouth Institute was the Young People's Histo- 
rical Lecture Course, running through a series of 
five years. The audiences at these lectures filled 
every one of the thousand seats in the auditorium 
and many were turned away. In these weekly lec- 
tures were presented pictures of the economic and 
political life of Indiana and of the nation. 

Plymouth Institute maintained a reading room, 
supplied with all the latest publications, open and 
free to all. 

In addition to the Young People's Historical Lec- 
ture Course, the church conducted a General Lecture 
Course addressed to the town. Among those who 
spoke from its platform were Matthew Arnold, Jus- 
tin McCarthy, Canon Farrar, Henry Ward Beecher, 
Mary A. Livermore, Booker T. Washington, Wen- 
dell Phillips, John Fiske and scores of others. Read- 
ers and musicians of this country and of Europe 
gave of their best in concerts. These are some of 
the distinctive purposes for which the church stood. 



EDUCATION AND RELIGION 75 

In addition to his ministerial work in the church, 
Mr. McCulloch's life radiated into the state and 
the nation. Here it took the form of interest in 
the philanthropies. He made investigation of the 
basis for relief, and his hand was immediately felt 
in all activities of this kind. He was the leading 
spirit of the Charity Organization Society; he estab- 
lished the Friendly Inn and Woodyard, founded the 
Children's Aid Society, and inaugurated, in 1885, 
a free bath. The county work-house, Dime Savings 
and Loan Association, and the Summer Mission for 
Sick Children were also the results of his work. 

For a number of years Mr. McCulloch was a 
leading member of the National Conference of 
Charities and Correction, and at the session held 
in Baltimore in 1890 he was made its president. 
Even a few of the achievements of this man would 
entitle him to the name of Torch Bearer. He was 
always at the service of every noble cause, and "the 
cause he knew not he searched out." In truth he 
gave his life because of this insatiable desire to be 
"About his Father's business." 

"Who at all times and everywhere gave his 
strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his 
sympathy to the suffering, his heart to God." 



CHAPTER III 

Torch Bearers in Patriotism and 
Statesmanship 

THE four names grouped in this chapter are 
in every way worthy of the heading. When 
one considers how the people of Indiana, under the 
leadership of Jonathan Jennings, were able to insert 
in their Constitution in 1816, a clause which dedi- 
cated Indiana to freedom, he feels that the com- 
monwealth had at that time in itself the elements of 
self-preservation in the minds of a majority of its 
citizens. When Indiana responded to the call for 
patriotic service under Lincoln and Morton, in '61, 
the same spirit that declared freedom in 1816 was 
now ready to preserve the Union. The generosity 
of that response has set an example of true patriot- 
ism for all time. It should be remembered that the 
splendid example of diplomacy embodied in John 
Milton Hay is not the only one of which our com- 
monwealth can boast. John W. Foster, of Pike 
County, Indiana, was also a diplomat of great re- 
nown. He had been prepared for diplomacy by a 
splendid education. He was gifted with natural 
powers. He served as United States minister to 
Mexico, Russia and Spain. He sat in the great 
tribunals at the Hague and elsewhere. He was sec- 

76 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 77 

retary of state under Benjamin Harrison and wrote 
books on diplomacy. 

The number of persons in Indiana who have been 
honored with consular and ministerial positions 
forms a list of worthy names. 

The characters of Jennings, Lincoln, Morton and 
Hay, if there were no others, are sufficient to stim- 
ulate coming generations to worthy efforts in unself- 
ish public service. 

JONATHAN JENNINGS 

Torch Bearer Who Helped to Make Indiana 
a Free State 

As first Governor of Indiana he said, "There shall 
be no slavery in this state." 

"It fixed forever the character of the population in 
the vast regions northwest of the Ohio by excluding 
from them involuntary servitude. It impressed on the 
soil itself, while it was still a wilderness, an incapacity 
to bear up any other than free men. It laid the inter- 
dict against personal servitude in the original compact, 
not only deeper than all local law, but deeper than all 
local constitutions." 

These are the words of Daniel Webster spoken in 
the United States Senate in 1830 in regard to the 
Ordinance of 1787. 

Fine words and they did come true, but not until 



78 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

after more than a quarter of a century of political 
struggle. For in 1787 there were already slaves in 
that part of the Northwest Territory which was to 
be Indiana. As time went on and men and women 
tried to gain their freedom in the courts, basing 
their claim on the Sixth Section of the Ordinance, 
court after court decided that the law was not retro- 
active and that slaves in 1787 remained slaves. 

A large proportion of the first settlers were from 
Virginia and Kentucky. The well-to-do brought 
slaves with them. They desired legal sanction for 
this and the question of slavery or no slavery be- 
came the burning issue in the political life of Indi- 
ana, far outweighing the distinction between Fed- 
eralist and Republican. Through the years, with 
great regularity, Congress was petitioned and me- 
morialized in the interests of slavery. The petition- 
ers begged for the abrogation of the Sixth Section 
of the Ordinance. While Congress refused to do 
this, the Indenture Laws, passed by the Territorial 
Legislature, and not repealed until 1810, practically 
introduced slavery into Indiana. 

The pro-slavery party was well organized. It was 
in control of the Territorial Government and in the 
earlier years it had a majority in its favor. The 
Vincennes region in the Southwest was its strong- 
hold. Here the French settlers had held slaves be- 
fore 1787. The political catchwords of the time 
were "the aristocrats" and "the people." The and- 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 79 

slavery feeling was unorganized but was growing in 
power. From the Falls region, in the Clark Grant, 
whose center was Charlestown, from Dearborn 
County in the Southeast and particularly from the 
White Water Valley, into which had come a large 
and ever increasing number of Quakers from the 
Carolinas, came a clear and distinct call for freedom 
that even the Territorial Government at Vincennes 
heard. The sentiment was there. It awaited a 
leader. In 1806 he came. His name was Jonathan 
Jennings, born in New Jersey, educated in the good 
schools in Pennsylvania. He was well born — his 
father a Presbyterian minister, his mother skilled in 
the healing art. He was young — only twenty-five 
years old. He had a winning personality which even 
his political enemies found difficult to resist. He 
was anti-slavery in sentiment and from now on it 
was he who carried the banner which bore the in- 
scription, "No slavery in Indiana." The battle was 
fully on to be continued through the Territorial pe- 
riod, with increased feeling into the formation of 
the Constitution and the admission of Indiana into 
the family of States, after that in the courts until 
the last vestige of "vested rights" guaranteed by 
the Ordinance and the Laws of Indentures had dis- 
appeared. That it took a long time, is shown by 
the fact that a local census of Vincennes taken by 
order of the Board of Trustees in 1830 shows thirty- 
two slaves held at that point, and the United States 



80 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

census for 1840 records three slaves in Indiana. 
Somebody evidently had not heard the news. 

To the pro-slavery party slavery was an economic 
question. To their opponents it was a moral ques- 
tion. 

Indiana had passed into the second stage of -Ter- 
ritorial development and was entitled to a repre- 
sentative in Congress. From being an appointive 
office, it had become elective, and in 1809, the gov- 
ernor issued a writ for the election of a representa- 
tive to Congress from Indiana Territory, which had 
now been set off from Illinois. Jennings offered 
himself as a candidate for the anti-slavery party. 
Opposed to him was Thomas Randolph, a Virgin- 
ian, a graduate of William and Mary College, a 
member of the distinguished family of the Ran- 
dolphs. He had lived in the Territory for some 
years, always holding office of some kind. At pres- 
ent he was the attorney-general by the governor's 
appointment. 

The campaign was one of the most picturesque 
events in Indiana political history. There were few 
settlements. Outside Vincennes there was hardly 
anything that would be called a town. It was a good 
deal of trouble to find the voters. Through the al- 
most unbroken forests rode the young man, follow- 
ing trails when there was no road, stopping wher- 
ever there was a clearing and a cabin — his mission 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 81 

the organization of the anti-slavery sentiment. When 
the votes were counted it was found, to the chagrin 
of his opponents, that Jennings was elected. 

Two years later, he and Randolph were again op- 
posing candidates for representative to Congress, 
The campaign was carried on with increasing bit- 
terness. Again Jennings won. The conflict between 
freedom and slavery grew more intense, culminating 
in the election of delegates to the Constitutional Con- 
vention, May 13, 1816. From the first returns, vic- 
tory for freedom was apparent. The convention 
met at Corydon, to which the capitol had been re- 
moved. It organized by electing Jonathan Jennings 
president. It was ten years since he had first en- 
tered the Territory. During this time, every man 
who named his name knew exactly where he stood 
on the Sixth Section of the Ordinance and knew 
that the banner of freedom was safe in his hands. 

The delegates to the convention from the eastern 
counties were anti-slavery. Their neighbor was the 
free state of Ohio, where nobody ever doubted that 
the Ordinance meant what it said. The delegates 
from the western counties were pro-slavery. Their 
neighbor was Illinois, soon to become a state, where 
the pro-slavery party was making a furious fight to 
nullify that part of the Ordinance forbidding the 
introduction of slaves. 

After the adoption of the Constitution, Jennings 



82 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

was chosen governor. He served two terms, resign- 
ing near the close of his second term, having been 
elected to Congress, where he served for several ses- 
sions. 

It was a long struggle, and he never flinched. To 
him, after a hundred years, thanks are still due. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Whose Torch Lighted the Fire of Freedom in 
the Hearts of Four Million Slaves 

"Cycles ferried my cradle, 
Cheerful boatmen were they." 

— Whitman. 

This man, Abraham Lincoln, was a child of des- 
tiny, a man of the people, a dreamer of dreams, a 
doer of deeds; he was nurtured on the realities and 
schooled by the forces of nature and the human ex- 
perience of daily life; he knew King James's Trans- 
lation of the Bible, and Shakespeare ; he realized in 
manhood the visions of his youth, and fulfilled his 
promise to himself, made on becoming acquainted 
with the institution of slavery, that he would give 
it a fatal blow if possible. This he did when he 
signed his great emancipation proclamation on Jan- 
uary 1, 1863. He made the soil of Indiana sacred 
by living upon it fourteen years. The cabin in which 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 83 

he was born in Kentucky has been enclosed within 
a temple, which will henceforth be a national shrine. 

This temple was dedicated on February 12, 1917. 
Upon this occasion Mr. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, of Chi- 
cago, said: 

"We are the forerunners of the long column 
of pilgrims that will come from all parts of 
the world to visit this shrine as one of the holy 
places of humanity, for herein was born a prophet, 
the great Emancipator. He has come to be the pos- 
session of the race. He is no longer an 'American,' 
though the greatest of Americans. He is no longer 
a representative of the English-speaking race, though 
the glory of it, but plain MAN, an honored and be- 
loved representative of humanity. His is the most 
familiar as well as the most beloved face on the 
globe. ,, 



84 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 



OLIVER PERRY MORTON 

Who Bore the Torch of Patriotism for 
Indiana in '61 

OLIVER P. MORTON 

Few are the spirits so supremely great 

That they can turn the tides of destiny 
With ruin fraught and drive the waves of fate 

To dash on other shores; yet such was he. 
Our state was drifting to the dark abyss 

That yawned behind secession; treason lay 
Lurking on every side; all hearts but his 

Faltered in doubt upon that perilous way. 
His arm alone our heavy burdens bore 

That else had crushed us. Grim adversity 
Inspired him. Through that long and bitter war 

He held us steadfast unto victory. 
While Lincoln gave to freedom its new birth 
And kept the people's rule upon the earth. 

— William Dudley Foulke. 

Every country that has become historic has its 
epic period and its epic heroes. Achilles in Greece, 
David in Palestine, Tell in Switzerland, William of 
Orange in the Netherlands, Peter the Great in Rus- 
sia, Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden, Washington and 
Lincoln in America. 

Our states, too, have had their heroes, and no 
state has had a hero more illustrious than Indiana. 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 85 

His name was Oliver P. Morton. He was our gov- 
erner during the civil war, and he was greater than 
the other war governors of the time because he had 
a greater task and more obstacles to overcome. 

In the little pioneer town of Salisbury, once the 
county seat of Wayne County, but of which now 
hardly a trace remains, Oliver P. Morton was born 
August 4, 1823. 

In his boyhood he was apprenticed to a hatter, 
but later, resolving to obtain an education, he studied 
for two years at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. 
He then married, and began the practice of law at 
Centerville, Indiana, which was then the county seat 
of Wayne County. To perfect himself in legal 
study, he attended the Cincinnati Law School, and 
upon his return to Centerville he became one of the 
leaders of the bar and was very strong in his appeals 
to the jury. 

His political principles developed very slowly. At 
first he was a Democrat and was opposed to the anti- 
slavery agitation. The Missouri compromise had 
settled the boundaries between slave territory and 
free territory, and he was opposed to disturbing this 
settlement. The evils of slavery had not come close 
enough to him to awaken his antagonism, but when 
Stephen A. Douglas introduced into the Senate the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill repealing the Missouri com- 
promise and giving the people of Kansas and Ne- 
braska north of the line fixed by that agreement the 



86 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

power to allow slavery in those territories, then the 
very reasons which had made Morton a Democrat 
before that time now led him to oppose his party 
and to join the new Republican party in 1856. 

In the same year he was nominated for governor, 
but was defeated. 

Four years later the Republicans decided to nomi- 
nate for governor Henry S. Lane, who had been a 
Whig, and for lieutenant-governor Morton, who 
had been a Democrat, and it was understood that if 
the new party won in the Legislature, Lane would be 
sent to the United States Senate and Morton would 
become governor. 

Although Morton would rather go to the Senate 
himself than become governor, he agreed to the ar- 
rangement, and upon the triumph of the Republicans 
in the election succeeded Lane to the governor's 
chair. 

Lincoln was elected President, and the great ques- 
tion of secession arose. Amidst the intense excite- 
ment and the endless discussions following the 
threat of South Carolina to secede, Morton's voice 
gave the first important utterance to the need of 
preserving the Union. In a memorable speech, made 
November, 1860, in Indianapolis, Morton showed 
the weakness of the arguments for secession. And 
again, a few months later, speaking on the occasion 
of raising the national flag on the dome of the State 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 87 

House, he gave one of his most eloquent addresses, 
in which he said : 

"If South Carolina gets out of the Union I trust 
it will be at the point of the bayonet after our best 
efforts have failed to compel her submission to the 
law. Better concede her independence to force, to 
revolution, than to right and principle. 

"I should rather come out of a struggle defeated 
in arms and conceding independence to successful 
revolution than purchase present peace by the con- 
cession of a principle that must inevitably explode 
this nation into small and dishonored fragments." 

Other states of the South passed secession ordi- 
nances in rapid succession, and Morton found rare 
opportunities to array public opinion on the side of 
the Union. On one occasion he said : 

"In view of the solemn crisis in which we stand, 
all minor, personal and party considerations should 
be banished from every heart. There should be but 
one party, and that the party of the Constitution and 
the Union. No man need pause to consider his duty. 
It is inscribed upon every page of our history, in all 
our institutions, and on everything by which we are 
surrounded. The path is so plain that the wayfar- 
ing man, though he be a fool, can not err therein. 
It is no time for hesitation; the man who hesitates 
under circumstances like these is lost." 



88 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

"For myself I will know no man who will stop 
and prescribe the conditions upon which he will 
maintain that flag, who will argue that a single star 
may be erased, or who will consent that it may be 
torn that he may make choice between its dishonored 
fragments. 

"I will know that man only who vows fidelity to 
the Union and the Constitution under all circum- 
stances and at all hazards." 

Then came the outbreak of the war and the fall 
of Sumter, and the North became one blaze of indig- 
nant patriotism. Before the news came of Lincoln's 
call for troops Morton had offered 10,000 men; 
4,600 only was the number assigned to Indiana. 
The quota was filled to overflowing. 

Morton continued to supply troops until Indiana 
had sent to the field 208,000 men. 

The universal burst of patriotic enthusiasm which 
followed the fall of Sumter was later succeeded by 
a sympathy with the South, which showed itself in 
complaints and criticisms of those in power. In a 
speech at Rockville at this time, Morton said : 

"I love peace as much as any man; its sweets are 
as delicious to my taste as to that of any human 
being. But when I say this I mean peace that is 
safe, peace that is crowned with liberty and the bless- 
ings of an enlightened civilization. I do not mean 
that peace which is the sleep of death or which is 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 89 

purchased by foul dishonor, nor that peace which 
is but another name for submission to tyrants and 
traitors." 

When in the state election of 1863 the Democratic 
party was successful, and the peace legislature con- 
vened, there was terrific pressure brought to bear 
upon Morton and his supporters to bring about nego- 
tiations for peace. But to the threat, "Not another 
man and not another dollar," Morton opposed his 
iron will and his determination that Indiana should 
not fail the Union in her hour of need, for he be- 
lieved in the ultimate loyalty and integrity of her 
people. 

When he discovered that a scheme was being fos- 
tered for taking the military power from his control 
and placing it in the hands of a board (composed 
of state officials who were opposed to the war), he, 
with the republican members of the Legislature, 
broke up the quorum in the House and the session 
came to an end. 

The Legislature had made no appropriations for 
expenses, but in place of calling an extra session he 
applied to counties, corporations and individuals for 
money to carry on the government. The men who 
gave the money knew that Morton could not repay 
them; they simply relied upon his word, supported 
as they believed it would be, by the ultimate patriot- 
ism of Indiana. Bankers of New York also loaned 



90 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

money to cover the interest on the state bonds, which 
state officials refused to pay, and the Federal Gov- 
ernment advanced money for military expenses. 
When the next Legislature met, all these large sums 
were returned. 

When the campaign of '64 came on, Morton had 
no competitor for the Republican nomination. Jo- 
seph E. McDonald was the Democratic candidate. 
In the joint debate between them, held throughout 
the state, Morton's power as a speaker was most 
forcibly shown, and the tide of sentiment was so 
strong that it swept everything before it. 

During these days, in addition to his Herculean 
efforts in raising, equipping and supplying troops 
and caring for the men in the field, in addition to 
the daily excitement of the campaign, Morton was 
obliged to use his energies in exposing and crushing 
a secret organization known as the Knights of the 
Golden Circle. These men plotted an armed insur- 
rection in the state, the release of Confederate pris- 
oners, and the assassination of the governor him- 
self. But all their plans came to naught through the 
remarkable insight, courage and energy of Morton, 
who succeeded not only in thwarting their schemes, 
but by arousing the indignation of the people against 
the organization. 

The war came to an end. The flag floated every- 
where. As each regiment returned, Morton was 
there to welcome it. But soon he was stricken by 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 91 

the hand of disease and in the hope of finding re- 
lief went abroad. His stay was short, however, and 
he soon returned to the scene of his activities. He 
was sent to the Senate, where he was one of the fore- 
most advocates of the policy of Congress against 
that of President Johnson. His great reconstruc- 
tion speech set forth the logic of this policy as it had 
never been set forth before. 

Morton's career in the Senate, which was marked 
by patriotic and beneficent efficiency, was cut short 
by his death November 1, 1877. 

The supreme work of Morton's life was his mag- 
nificent career as war governor of Indiana. Here 
the opinion of history can never be divided. If our 
nation was worth saving, if the example of human 
liberty represented by our institutions was worth 
preserving for the world, mankind will ever treasure 
the career of that peerless executive who, rising to 
every emergency undaunted in the midst of every 
obstacle and danger, held the keystone state of the 
Ohio valley in line with her loyal sisters and brought 
her to the very front in patriotism, efficiency and 
splendid courage during the dark struggle for the 
preservation of our national life. 



92 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

JOHN MILTON HAY 
Torch Bearer in American Diplomacy 

An important part of the Centennial celebration 
in Salem, Washington County, Indiana, on August 
25, 1916, was the unveiling of a bronze tablet mark- 
ing the birthplace of John Hay, scholar, author, 
statesman, patriot, diplomat. The chief address 
was given by Henry Lane Wilson, ex-United States 
Ambassador to Mexico and a lifelong friend of 
John Hay. Mr. Wilson said in part : 

"During his life John Hay was my friend and 
sympathetic guide and mentor. In this place, so 
closely associated with his name, it is a privilege 
and a happiness for me to bear witness to my re- 
spect and love for him." 

He was born October 8, 1838, amid these quiet 
hills remote from the world. The persisting influ- 
ence of strong and virile blood carried him forth 
to a life of great public usefulness and service to 
his country. 

The public career of John Hay extended all the 
way from Lincoln to Roosevelt; from the great 
drama of the civil war to the Portsmouth Treaty. 

He was the friend and intimate counselor of Lin- 
coln, the trusted adviser of Grant, Garfield and Mc- 
Kinley, and again, at the close of his career, the 
friend and intimate adviser of Roosevelt. 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 93 

The remarkable versatility of John Hay is re- 
vealed in his power to gain and hold the confidence 
and esteem of these greatly differing personages, 
and through them, by the force of his genius, wis- 
dom and tact, to bring about great and lasting good 
to our country and to the world. 

The story of his relations with Lincoln in the 
tragic hours of the republic has passed into history; 
he has told this story himself; where else do we find 
more intimate touches of his character and the sweet 
philosophy and kindness of the great martyr or more 
vivid portrayal of the events of those dramatic 
hours ? 

His great work as Secretary of State under two 
administrations has been told only in fragmentary 
ways, but when it is fully known, the place of Hay 
in American history will be firm and fixed. With 
the exception of William H. Seward, no other Sec- 
retary of State has made so great an impression on 
the chancellories of the world; none have more in- 
telligently formulated our foreign policy toward 
all nations; none have rendered greater service to 
American commerce and to the spread of American 
ideas. In Russia the name of John Hay is revered 
as that of one who encouraged the movement for 
higher and better things; in England he stands as 
the model of the loftiest and best diplomacy which 
America has produced; he was the intimate friend 
of the Emperor William of Germany; his bust stood 



94 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

during his lifetime in the libraries of King Alphonso 
and of King Leopold. 

It is not conceivable that under the administra- 
tion of John Hay as Secretary of State that any- 
thing but dignity, wisdom, consistency and respect 
for the amenities and traditions could mark our 
intercourse with the world. 

While John Hay did not thoroughly understand 
Latin-America, he understood the great forces at 
work in Europe — European traditions; its multi- 
tude of political intrigues; its commercial and in- 
dustrial evolutions. In this field of diplomacy he 
worked as a skilled craftsman; none more alert, 
none quicker to grasp, none sooner to take advan- 
tage of an opportunity or weakness. 

His greatest work, however, was the formulation 
of our policy in the Pacific Orient. With marvelous 
patience, persistence and sagacity he brought about 
the recognition by all the great powers of the prin- 
ciple of the "Open Door" in China. 

John Hay died in 1905 in the midst of his labors 
and triumphs. He went out as a warrior to the house 
of death. In his last days, and almost hours, I had 
messages from him — messages always abounding 
with wit, pathos and wisdom. He wrote of the 
last line of eloquent prose, of the last song of the 
singer, of the last burst of genius; for he was pre- 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 95 

eminently a scholar and a poet. He saw far into 
the future of this great republic, and if there were 
doubts there were also hopes. He saw dangers in 
the spirit of commercial greed ; in the lawless tend- 
encies of the proletariat; in the levity of the public 
mind; in the selfishness of political opportunism; 
but over all there was a high note of optimism; a 
settled belief that out of much confusion and an 
infinite babbling of tongues the republic would 
finally emerge, sound in body and soul. 

His was a gentle spirit, loving all things, good and 
loved of all. Courteous and kind to his associates, 
sympathetic to those in distress, just and consid- 
erate in public affairs. He left not an enemy behind 
him, nor the memory of an unkind act or word." 

In Mr. Charles W. Moore's appreciative article, 
"The Making of a Diplomat," copyrighted by Put- 
nam's Sons, the following toast made by Mr. Hay 
before a society in New York is quoted : 

"I was born in Indiana; I grew up in Illinois; 
I was educated in Rhode Island; ... I learned 
my law in Springfield, Illinois, and my politics in 
Washington, my diplomacy in Europe, Asia and 
Africa. I have a farm in New Hampshire and desk 
room in the District of Columbia. When I look to 
the springs whence my blood descends, the first an- 
cestors I ever heard of were a Scotchman who was 
half English and a German woman who was half 
French. Of my immediate progenitors, my mother 



96 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

was from New England and my father was from 
the South. In this bewilderment of origin and expe- 
rience I can only put on the aspect of deep humility 
in any gathering of favorite sons and confess that 
I am nothing but an American." 

This is a fine summary of Hay's preparation for 
the great service he rendered his country. 

As a poet Hay became first widely known through 
his "Pike County Ballads." "Little Breeches" ap- 
peared and reappeared in the papers, the sweet story 
of the little boy found in the sheepfold safe from 
harm; and of Jim Bledsoe, saying in homely dialect 
what Burns had so long before said, "A man's a 
man for a' that and a' that," Hay says as Bledsoe's 
soul goes up in the smoke of the burning boat after 
the last passenger had been rescued : 

"And Christ ain't going to be too hard 
On a man that dies for men." 

As a contrast to these "Pike County Ballads" that 
sound the plummet of human nature, Mr. Moores 
quotes "Thanatos-Athanatos," which he calls one 
of the great poems of our day : 

THANATOS-ATHANATOS 

At eve, when the brief wintry day is sped, 

I muse beside my fire's faint flickering glare — 
Conscious of wrinkling face and whitening hair — 

Of those who, dying young, inherited 



PATRIOTISM AND STATESMANSHIP 97 

The immortal youthfulness of the early dead. 
I think of Raphael's grand seigneurial air; 
Of Shelley and Keats, with laurels fresh and fair. 
Shining unwithered on each sacred head ; 

And soldier boys, who snatched death's starry prize, 
With sweet life radiant in their fearless eyes, 
The dreams of love upon their beardless lips, 
Bartering dull age for immortality ; 
Their memories held in death's unyielding fee, 
The youth that thrilled them to the finger tips. 

John Hay's sense of humor was innate. When at 
Brown University, where he distinguished himself 
through his verse and his writings, this sense of 
humor is illustrated by the following. Hay, then 
a newcomer, was called upon for a toast. A stu- 
dent shouted that they wanted nothing dry. Hay 
said, "Green hay is never dry," and made his speech. 

Although John Hay left Salem, his birthplace, 
at the age of three, he cherished a fond recollection 
for his native town, and later in life gave for the 
establishment of a library there a sum of money 
which at that time was considered liberal. 

A short time before his death John Hay wrote in 
his journal an entry that shows his knowledge of 
the approach of the end. He referred to the suc- 
cesses that had come to him through fame and a 
rich life. He spoke lovingly of his wife and chil- 
dren and of the domestic happiness that he had 
enjoyed and the pleasure of rendering to his coun- 
try noble service. 



CHAPTER IV 
Torch Bearers in Law, History and Journalism 

BEFORE the statutory enactments of a new ter- 
ritory, the conduct of the inhabitants is regulated 
by the rules of the military commandant and the ad- 
vice of the clergy. The government of the North- 
west Territory, the first colonial government of the 
United States, began on October 5, 1787, with the 
appointment by Congress of General Arthur St. 
Clair as Governor. On October 16, Congress ap- 
pointed as the three territorial judges, Samuel Hol- 
den Parsons, John Armstrong and James Whitehall 
Varnum. In January, 1788, Armstrong declined 
his appointment and there was selected in his place 
John Cleves Symmes. Governor St. Clair arrived 
in Marietta, the capital of the Northwest Territory, 
of which Indiana was a part, on July 9, 1788, and 
six days later read his proclamation formally in- 
augurating the new government. In the following 
year, on September 22, 1789, there was a pictur- 
esque opening of the court at Marietta. A proces- 
sion consisting of the high sheriff, with drawn 
sword, the citizens, the officers of the garrison of 
Fort Harmar, members of the bar, the supreme 
judges, the governor, clergymen and the judges of 
the court of common pleas, marched and counter- 

98 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 99 

marched, proceeding to a hall where the common 
pleas judges took their seats. 

The sheriff then proclaimed that "a court was 
open for the administration of even-handed justice 
to the poor and the rich, the guilty and the innocent, 
without respect of persons, none to be punished 
without a trial by their peers, and then in pursuance 
of the law and evidence in the case." When the 
new United States Constitution came into force, the 
Marietta government was reorganized and Presi- 
dent Washington in 1789 reappointed the territorial 
officers. 

Governor St. Clair and the judges passed ten 
statutes at Marietta in 1788; then from time to time 
they met until June 1, 1795, when St. Clair, 
Symmes and Turner in Cincinnati adopted thirty- 
eight statutes, mostly taken from the laws of Penn- 
sylvania, which were afterward published in July, 
1795. Some of these judges had been in the Revo- 
lutionary war, were members of the Continental 
Congress, and had given valuable public service to 
their country as citizens. Not only the judges, but 
the lawyers also, were men of education, birth and 
distinction, most of the judges being graduates of 
the leading universities of the country. 

When a division of the Northwest Territory was 
made, John Gibson was appointed its secretary and 
came to Vincennes, the capital of Indiana Territory, 
and proclaimed the new government on July 4, 



100 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

1800, in a simple and informal way. Suits begun in 
the old territory were continued in the new as if 
separation had not occurred and both the laws and 
administration also were continued. When Gover- 
nor Harrison arrived at Vincennes January 10, 

1801, he took his oath of office and then called for 
the following Monday a meeting of the territorial 
legislature, composed of the governor and the three 
judges. This was the first legislative meeting in 
what is now Indiana. The legislature sat from the 
twelfth to the twenty-sixth day of January, and 
passed six laws, one act and three resolutions. The 
records show that these early legislators had but lit- 
tle ability as lawyers. Various courts were created 
in the territory but they require no attention here. 

Indiana was admitted as a state on the signing by 
the President of a bill for that purpose December 
11, 1816. A majority of the members of the Con- 
stitutional Convention held in the summer of that 
year were lawyers. Among these were two of the 
best lawyers of the territory, Benjamin Parke, who 
later became a federal judge and who revised the 
laws of Indiana in 1824, and John Johnson, who, 
with John Rice Jones, had codified the laws of In- 
diana Territory in 1807. Other well-known and 
able lawyers in the convention were Robert Hanna, 
James Noble, Joseph Holman, James Dill, Davis 
Floyd and James Scott. 

The roll of Indiana lawyers is long and contains 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 101 

many names that are already written in the history 
of legal proceedings of the state. Some of these 
men were able orators — notably among them were 
Edward Hannegan, Thomas Hendricks, Henry S. 
Lane, Daniel Vorhees, Fletcher Wood, Richard 
Thompson, Benjamin Harrison and others. 

History in Indiana since the days of John Dillon 
has steadily continued to put the people of the state 
and their various achievements on record. Among 
the later histories that of Jacob P. Dunn, setting 
forth the question of "Indiana's Redemption from 
Slavery," continues to be a standard. As a centen- 
nial tribute, Mrs. Julia Henderson Levering re- 
vised her readable history of Indiana. Mr. George 
Cottman in collaboration with Mr. Max Hyman 
also wrote a history of Indiana in 1916. Special 
mention should be made of William M. Cockrum's 
"A Pioneer History of Indiana" and "A History 
of the Underground Railroad as Conducted by the 
Anti-Slavery League." A number of other smaller 
and most valuable histories have also been written 
as centennial contributions. It was left to Julia C. 
Conklin to tell the story of Indiana in a way to ap- 
peal to the younger mind, and her book was also 
revised for the Centennial year. There can really 
be said to be a revival of historic interest in Indiana 
as a result of study in connection with the Statehood 
Centennial, and with the formation of many new 
historical societies in counties where such organiza- 



102 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

tions did not before exist. The Centennial itself 
greatly stimulated historic study. 

Journalism in Indiana at the present day has a 
wonderful record and dates back to a time near the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. Since the first 
paper in Indiana, printed by Elihu Stout in 1804, up 
to the present time, journalism has kept pace with 
the growing interests of the state, and every pro- 
fession and almost every business interest now sends 
forth some sort of a sheet to its patrons. 

The following picture of early journalism in In- 
diana is found in Mr. Jacob P. Dunn's History. He 
speaks especially of John W. Osborn, a newspaper 
man, living at Vincennes at the time of Elihu Stout. 
Mr. Osborn's father was Captain Samuel Osborn, 
of the British navy. His son joined the American 
army in the war of 1812, because he was convinced 
of the justice of the American cause, and was widely 
known as one of the most influential men in every 
work of progress in Indiana. 

He established the first newspaper at Terre Haute 
in 1823, when he began farming on account of bad 
health. In 1834, he left the farm, went to Green- 
castle, and founded The Ploughboy, one of the most 
popular newspapers of its day. He sent out with it, 
gratis, an eight-page sheet in pamphlet form called 
The Temperance Advocate, which was the first tem- 
perance paper published in the West. He was the 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 103 

prime mover in the establishment of Asbury (now 
De Pauw) University, and was one of its first 
trustees. In 1838 he began publishing the Indiana 
Farmer at Indianapolis. At the breaking out of the 
civil war he went to Sullivan, and established The 
Stars and Stripes, an aggressive war paper. He died 
in 1866, after a long life of usefulness, devoted 
chiefly to temperance, education, and opposition to 
slavery. 

Notable among the editors in the medical pro- 
fession is Dr. Alembert Brayton, for many years 
editor of The Indiana Medical Journal. The pages 
of this periodical are not only filled with news of 
the profession, but contain articles of rare literary 
merit upon books and writers and poetry and philos- 
ophy. 

To show that Indiana has kept abreast with na- 
tional as well as state questions, the Civil Service 
Chronicle, published in Indiana for seven years and 
a half from 1889 to 1896, bears witness. This 
paper lifted up its voice against the "spoils system" 
of our country. It was edited by Lucius B. Swift 
and his wife. William Dudley Foulke was a prom- 
inent upholder of the cause. That was in the days 
when George William Curtis was the leader in civil 
service reform, and from whom the editor of the 
Chronicle then had many letters. Lucius B. Swift 
is a prominent lawyer of Indianapolis and has lifted 



104 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

up his voice, wherever opportunity invited, in favor 
of the rights of the English-speaking race and the 
unification of the democracies of the world. 

It has been said that the Chronicle contained the 
most complete record of the civil service reform 
and its abuses. It was supported by receipts from 
subscribers and by a fund contributed from different 
parts of the country by advocates of the cause. 

There should be mentioned in this connection, 
Ida Husted Harper, an Indiana woman who has 
won a name for herself as a newspaper correspond- 
ent. She was born in the distinguished town of 
Brookville, educated at Muncie, Indiana University 
and Leland Stanford University. She was early 
on the editorial staff of the News and is still its 
correspondent from New York; while her letters 
confine themselves to the workings of women, they 
cover a wide field of interest and are largely read 
by the people of Indiana. She now writes for the 
Review of Reviews, North American Review, Har- 
per's Weekly and other magazines, and has her own 
syndicate of metropolitan newspapers. 

Most religious denominations are represented by 
papers; also the agricultural departments of the col- 
leges issue most valuable bulletins upon scientific 
farming and related interests. Bulletins are also 
sent out by the State Board of Charities and by li- 
braries. All of these show the indispensable use of 
the printing press as a medium for the dissemination 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 105 

of ideas and for communication. There is no county 
in Indiana to-day without its weekly papers nor any 
city or town of any size without its dailies, amount- 
ing to hundreds, all of which are worthy. 



ISAAC BLACKFORD 

Torch Bearer in the Interpretation of the Law 
in Early Indiana 

Among the lawyers who have acquired distinction 
in the state of Indiana, the name of Isaac Blackford 
takes high rank. His fame depends upon no ad- 
ventitious accomplishments. He was not an orator, 
and is said to have spoken but little, and that little 
not very well. But he was discriminating and log- 
ical. 

The seven volumes of his Reports, consisting of 
cases selected from the large number that came be- 
fore the court, published from 1830 to 1850, are re- 
garded so sound that they are quoted in all the 
American states and in England. So the judicial 
dicta of Judge Blackford not only have been the 
governor-wheel that started Indiana law on a sub- 
stantial and even career, but have assisted in mold- 
ing the legal thought of a nation. It is true many of 
his decisions have been overthrown — he himself re- 
versed many of his earlier ones — but the changes 
came largely with that growth of the community in 



{ 



106 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

intelligence, breadth of vision and orderly conduct 
which made those changes necessary. 

Blackford's decisions were founded on the best 
judicial opinions obtainable in his day. He slowly, 
but clearly, logically and concisely constructed his 
chain of legal thought, and when it was complete 
there was no necessity for another carefully rea- 
soned decision on the same points. His decisions 
rested very largely on precedent, and the argument 
that could overthrow in his mind the weight of 
established principle had to be strong indeed. This 
tendency of his mind aided the community and the 
bar in making reasonably certain at all times just 
what was the law. A more progressive, less cau- 
tious judge might easily have done considerable 
damage by leaving the law in a more chaotic con- 
dition. 

Isaac Blackford was born in Bound Brook, New 
Jersey, in 1786. He was of pure English lineage, 
and was educated in the classics in Princeton col- 
lege. At the age of nineteen he took up the study 
of Blackstone. After leaving Princeton, he read 
law in the office of Gabriel Ford, one of the best law- 
yers in New Jersey. Governor Jennings also came 
from New Jersey and from the same neighborhood 
as Blackford. Jennings and Blackford belonged to 
the same political party and both voted with the 
eastern settlers of Indiana in opposition to Gover- 
nor William Henry Harrison. At the funeral of 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 107 

Judge John Johnson, one of the members of the 
first supreme court, Governor Jennings told Black- 
ford that he had decided to appoint him to the vacant 
place on the bench. Previous to this, Blackford had 
served as cashier of a Vevay bank, as clerk of Wash- 
ington County, as clerk of the House of Representa- 
tives in 1813, as president judge of the First Terri- 
torial Circuit, as speaker of the General Assembly 
convened at Corydon in 1816. He was cashier of 
the Vincennes State Bank at the time of his appoint- 
ment to the supreme bench. Blackford is said to 
have urged that older, better, more experienced men 
could be found for the place, but nevertheless he 
accepted the position and remained on the bench for 
thirty-seven years, till the old court was dissolved. 
His service was practically coincident with the life 
of the old supreme court, as only one short session 
had been held before he came to the bench. 

Blackford was a poor politician, as is shown in 
his successive defeats for governor, for United 
States Senator, for judge, for supreme court re- 
porter and for a congressional candidacy. President 
Pierce, in 1855, appointed him judge of the United 
States Court of Claims at Washington. He re- 
mained on this bench till his death at midnight of 
December 31, 1859. 

In spite of adverse criticism for trying to make 
too much money out of his reports, his integrity on 
the bench was never assailed. Lawyers generally 



108 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

agreed that his decisions were strictly according to 
law and were eminently fair. While in Indianap- 
olis he lived the life of a recluse with a colored serv- 
ant, William Franklin. He did not belong to a 
club, church or lodge. Governor Porter, who was 
a representative in Congress when Judge Blackford 
died, said at the bar meeting in Washington, "There 
is not a community in Indiana in which the name of 
Judge Blackford is not a household word. He has 
been identified with our state since the first; he may 
be said to be part of our institutions. Judicial 
ability, judicial purity, private worth singularly 
blending the simplicity of childhood with the sober 
gravity of age, were represented in the mind of the 
profession and in the popular mind of Indiana in 
the person of Isaac Blackford." General Lew Wal- 
lace, in his autobiography, speaks of making the ac- 
quaintance of Isaac Blackford and Charles Dewey, 
who were "in the annals of Indiana, the first, last 
and greatest of her old-school judiciary." 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 109 

JOHN B. DILLON 

Who Lighted the Torch of History in Indiana 

"Forty years of honest conscientious devotion; four 
books that people would not buy, and death in a lonely 
garret face to face with grim poverty because he 
wrought for the love of truth and not dollars — this is 
the life story of John B. Dillon." — George S. Cott- 

MAN. 

To-day no name appears oftener in the foot-notes 
of the standard histories of Indiana than the name 
of John B. Dillon. His great patience through 
twenty years in examining printed manuscripts in 
French and English, in interviewing hundreds of 
people, and collecting old prints and letters that 
threw light on the situation, has made his history a 
source-book for the student. 

One can easily imagine the young lad, born in 
Wellsburg, West Virginia, in 1808, already equipped 
with a knowledge of the printer's trade, when at 
the age of nine he moved to Cincinnati, where he 
stayed ten years. He passed from there to Logans- 
port, Indiana, where his name is revered to-day; 
here his literary work began to take shape. He 
wrote poetry, contributed to magazines and, like 
Lowell, studied at the bar but never practised. His 
legal studies in this early time made a lifelong im- 
pression upon him and fitted him for a juster esti- 



110 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

mate of historic facts, and fostered in him a spirit 
of conservatism that caused the casting out of all 
purely sensational elements from his history. In 
his preface he himself says : "I have not ... in 
any instance adopted such statements or such views 
with respect to any immediate matter of history 
without subjecting them to the ordeal of a close ex- 
amination and an impartial comparison with the 
statements and views of those who were contempo- 
rary writers." While at Logansport the inception 
of Mr. Dillon's valuable history took place, shaping 
itself in his mind through research, and appearing 
in 1859. 

He filled the place of state librarian from 1845 to 
1851, served as secretary to the State Board of Ag- 
riculture from 1852 to 1859; in 1863 he was ap- 
pointed to a clerkship in the Department of the In- 
terior, Washington, D. C, where he remained twelve 
years. After this he returned to Indianapolis, and 
died four years later at the age of seventy-one. He 
was laid to rest in Crown Hill cemetery beside the 
soldiers who gave their lives for the Union. 

After his death in 1879, Mr. Dillon's book, "Oddi- 
ties of Colonial Legislation and Condensed Amer- 
ica," was printed. This volume is said to be full of 
the most valuable information with reference to the 
early days of the colonies. 

John Coburn has said, "Mr. Dillon knew that his 
work would endure. He had no profession but let- 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 111 

ters and in the solid result of his best labors neither 
money nor applause added to his satisfaction. No 
library in America can be considered complete with- 
out his histories." (Levering's History, p. 379.) 

It is again said of him, "He had certain noble 
ideals, severe and simple, as to the office of historian, 
and no artist was truer to his art than he to these 
ideals." 

Mr. Dillon, like other "students in the lonely 
tower," gave his life cheerfully to his task and is 
remembered by those who saw him as a man of 
great modesty and cheerfulness, one who created in 
others a feeling of profound respect for him, and 
above all one who handed on the torch of history to 
the people of this generation. 



LOGAN ESAREY 

Torch Bearer of Research in Indiana 
History in 1915 

Along with the lighting of the torch to celebrate 
Indiana's Statehood Centennial, an Indiana research 
history was placed before the public in 1915, writ- 
ten by Logan Esarey, Ph. D., of Indiana University. 
This book, like the printing press introduced into 
Indiana Territory one hundred and eleven years be- 
fore, came without observation, and yet, like the 
printing press, it is destined to exert a powerful in- 



112 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

fluence upon Indiana citizens in enabling them to 
know their state in its origin and development, up 
to 1850. 

Since John Dillon began to write the first history 
of Indiana, there has been no change in historic 
methods except in degree, made possible by access 
to historic archives and other historic material. John 
Dillon went through the same patient examination 
of documents and material, the same attempts to 
sift out accepted fact from mere conjecture, as has 
Logan Esarey, and withal to put into his work a 
like devotion and intelligence that has made it an 
enduring contribution to Indiana letters. 

This book is the result of ten years of ceaseless 
investigation, but it is far more than that — it grew 
out of the inborn taste and aptitude of the writer 
for historic study. 

Among the many estimates of this history, it may 
be in place to quote from the Evansville Courier, 
which says : "Professor Esarey's history is invalua- 
ble to the student and it will be eagerly sought by the 
general reader. Few states outside the original 
thirteen have had a history so interesting. Its be- 
ginnings were laid in romantic adventure and its 
development was through stirring times. On Indi- 
ana soil, George Rogers Clark carried out one of 
the most brilliant exploits of the Revolution. Its 
borders were touched by the war of 1812 and Hoo- 
sier soldiers participated in battles under Taylor and 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 113 

Scott in Mexico. Conflicts with the Indians were 
frequent. 

"While Professor Esarey gives due attention to 
wars and politics and government, he fully describes 
the life of the people, their habits, customs and so- 
cial institutions. The book is admirable throughout. 
It is highly creditable to the author, the university 
and the state." 

Dr. Esarey says, in regard to the difficulty in 
writing this book: "The great task has been the 
criticism of the state documents. Without form or 
arrangement, and in large measure without verifica- 
tion, they had to be gone over one by one, put in 
order and labeled. The period since the American 
settlement has been found most significant. The first 
educational, religious, financial and industrial ef- 
forts, the early roads and canals, the early banks, 
the early press, the settlers themselves, their politics, 
their religious views, their home life, these have been 
the interesting theme. LaSalle, DeSoto, Verendrye, 
and their fellows have had little attraction." 

Dr. Esarey in himself embodies the real genius 
of Hoosier life; he is modest, patriotic, frank, inde- 
pendent, open-minded, kind-hearted, and not afraid 
of work; he has also an admirable simplicity of 
manner and a quickness of mind which has from 
earliest childhood led him to investigate and verify 
what he heard of the legend, tradition and history 
about him. 



114 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

The ancestors of Logan Esarey came to Perry 
and Spencer counties in southern Indiana six years 
before the Territory was made a State, and the 
home farm settled in 1810 is still occupied by the 
direct descendants of its first owner. In the shel- 
tered hills of this region much of the world passed 
by these worthy people, and even as late as 1875, 
such customs of the early pioneer times, as the 
play party in all its variations, the singing school, 
the old-fashioned wedding, the spelling match, the 
charivari, the corn shucking, the shooting match and 
the camp meetings in their original forms could be 
seen. The early folk speech of this region also lin- 
gered long, and many traces of it may be met to-day. 

The books in his grandfather's library early had 
a fascination for young Logan, especially the his- 
tories of Western settlement. The stories of Boone, 
Kenton, Shelby, Poe, Zane, Whetzel, Clark and all 
the list down to Fremont and Kit Carson were far 
better known by him than those of Plutarch. 

It is said that the pioneer teachers and preach- 
ers made no sharp line of distinction between classic, 
romantic, early American or heroes of the wild 
West. The stories of these heroes formed a large 
part of the community education, and owing to the 
scarcity of books were handed on orally or read 
from the pages of Butler, McClung or McAffee. 

Later he came under the influence of Doctors 
Turner of Wisconsin, Hodgin of Earlham, and 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 115 

Woodburn of Indiana University, all working along 
the same lines. Dr. Esarey also began to investi- 
gate and organize historic knowledge, confining him- 
self to Indiana. 

His training afforded him opportunity for historic 
study. His position at Vincennes placed that city 
before him as a great book of the past history of 
early Indiana, which he mastered. It might be said 
here that the time leading up to his college career 
was filled with going to school, teaching school and 
superintending schools. 

In 1911 he entered as a fellow in research work 
in Indiana University. This study was only a con- 
tinuance of what began with him when a boy among 
the hills of his early home. 

Dr. Esarey is at this time a teacher of Western 
History in Indiana University; he is also editor-in- 
chief of the Indiana Magazine of History. There 
will soon appear from his pen a "History of the 
Press in Indiana." 

This brief mention of the work of Logan Esarey 
is only a repetition of the old story "That nothing 
brings nothing." His gift is rich in labor and de- 
votion, and has been crowned with a result of which 
Indiana is proud. 



116 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 



ELIHU STOUT 

Torch Bearer in the Beginnings of Journalism 
in 1804 

It seems fitting that at the post of old Vincennes, 
where the American flag was first permanently 
planted by George Rogers Clark over the Northwest 
Territory; where Father Gibault and other French 
missionaries came in the interests of religion and 
education, that in this place the great civilizer — the 
printing press — should in due time arrive with its 
worthy editor, Elihu Stout. Information about this 
worthy editor is very scant, but through the kind- 
ness of Dr. Logan Esarey, of Indiana University, 
the following account has been furnished from the 
advance pages of his book, "A History of the Press 
in Indiana/' Dr. Esarey says : 

"Among free and enlightened people the press 
has come to be a recognized necessity. Its advent 
into a new community raises that community in the 
estimation of the world to a plane of respectability. 
A neighborhood, a town or city without a press is 
at least in a low state of organization. In the prog- 
ress of the American settlements across the conti- 
nent the press has usually marched in the vanguard. 

"John Bradford was running a printing plant at 
Lexington, Ky., before the Northwest Territory was 
organized. He was able to announce in his Gazette 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 117 

the adoption of the United States Constitution; 
more, he was able to advocate the election of old 
Humphrey Marshall as a delegate to the Virginia 
convention. It was an old paper when Napoleon 
was at his prime. 

"The distinction of founding the first newspaper 
in Indiana Territory belongs beyond question to 
Elihu Stout. Such an event as the founding of a 
newspaper is not heralded with pomp and ceremony 
like those which usually accompany conquests, but 
when a juster estimate is made of the progress of 
enlightenment, when the factors of civilization are 
arranged by history more in the order of their im- 
portance, the invasion of Elihu Stout and his print- 
ing press will be second only to that of George Rog- 
ers Clark. 

"Elihu Stout was a native of New Jersey, the 
state whence came Benjamin Parke, Isaac Black- 
ford, Nicholas Smith and Jonathan Doty, his fellow 
citizens in Vincennes. Stout was a printer by trade, 
having learned the art in his native state. Coming 
west while a young man, he obtained work at his 
trade with the Bradfords at Lexington, Kentucky, 
on the Gazette. After several years he drifted down 
to Nashville, Tennessee, where he became personally 
acquainted with Andrew Jackson, a fact that had 
large consequences in Stout's own later editorial ca- 
reer and in state politics. 

"When he learned that Indiana Territory had been 



118 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

organized, he determined to go to its capital and 
found a paper. He laid his plans during the winter 
of 1803. Having decided to come, Stout returned 
to Kentucky from Nashville, bought three horses, 
procured materials and came through by the Falls 
and the Vincennes Trail to the territorial capital. 
He sent his press by boat, which was a piroque, 
down the Kentucky and Ohio and up the Wabash. 
As this boat was propelled all the way by hand, it 
did not reach Vincennes for several weeks after 
Stout had arrived with his paper. 

'The land office had been opened recently at Vin- 
cennes by Nathaniel Ewing and John Badollet, the 
former an ambitious Scotch-Irishman from Penn- 
sylvania, the latter a countryman and close friend 
of Albert Gallatin. Fate was unkind to the printer 
at this time, and it was Stout's misfortune, due to 
his friendships contracted in Kentucky and Tennes- 
see, to ally himself with the waning fortunes of the 
Virginia politicians. This, of course, was the every- 
day division of the townsfolk only; on important 
occasions they acted together. 

"Certainly no paper ever had a more unpromising 
patronage. Of the eight thousand or ten thousand 
settlers in and around Vincennes it seems impossible 
that more than one in fifty could read the English 
language. On the other hand, one hundred paying 
subscribers made a good and sufficient subscription 
list at the time. 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 119 

"The Indiana Gazette, as Mr. Stout named his 
paper, made its initial appearance on the birthday 
of the republic, 1804. About one and one-half years 
later fire destroyed the press and the Indiana Ga- 
zette had finished its career. So far as the writer 
knows, only the ten copies of this paper in the 
Harvard library and seven in the American Anti- 
quarian library of Worcester, Mass., remain. Seri- 
ous as is this loss, it can better be spared than any of 
the later volumes. 

"Editor Stout set about, immediately after the 
fire, to refurnish the materials. In his distress he 
at once remembered the Bradfords. Returning to 
Frankfort, he found types and a press, came through 
safely on horseback to the capital at Vincennes with- 
out, so far as we know, producing any 'pi.' The 
new paper, the Western Sun, like its predecessor, 
dates from July 4, but three years had elapsed since 
the Gazette had appeared in 1804. For four long 
lean years Editor Stout struggled with delinquent 
subscribers, infrequent mails, perverse politicians 
and extreme difficulties in obtaining print paper and 
ink. But the national and territorial governments 
aided him some by giving him the publishing of the 
United States laws and the territorial printing. In 
1807 he published the John Rice Jones revision of 
the territorial laws on hand-made deckle-edge, pure 
rag paper, carried on horseback from the paper 
mills of Frankfort, Ky. It may be added that this 



120 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

paper mill consisted of a rag grinder and a spring 
branch. I have before me a copy of the book, ar- 
tistically bound in harness leather and sewed with 
a rawhide thong as large as a lead-pencil. Neither 
this paper nor the ink, however, has faded in the 
least. The same is true largely of the files of the 
Sun now in the state library. 

"By this time, 1807, the Indians were becoming 
restless, and the first mutterings of the coming storm 
can yet be heard through the columns of the Sun. 
Tecumseh, the Turtle, Generals Harrison, Taylor, 
Tipton, Bartholomew, Shelby, Hopkins, Russell are 
the commonplace characters in these old volumes 
from 1807 to 1815. The brief notices that are 
given, for they walk across the stage like ghosts, 
are, of course, invaluable, but they always leave the 
reader wishing the indolent editor had told us a 
thousand things we would like to know and which 
the pages of the Sun do not tell." 

Elihu Stout continued his paper at old Vincennes 
until he was made postmaster in 1845. During these 
forty-one years, the pages of the Western Sun had 
thrown much light upon matters of public impor- 
tance and private interest. We look back upon him 
in the offices of territorial printer, editor and pub- 
lisher with gratitude. 

The beginning of what is to-day one of the great- 
est educational powers in the state, harks back to 
the coming of Elihu Stout and his printing press 
to the territory of Indiana. 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 121 

JOHN H. HOLLIDAY 

Torch Bearer as Founder of the First Two-Cent 

Evening Paper West of the Alleghany 

Mountains 

It was sixty-five years from the time Elihu Stout 
brought the first printing press to old Vincennes in 
1804, to the time of the founding of The Indianap- 
olis News in 1869 by John H. Holliday, of Indian- 
apolis. 

To-day we look at a great printing press, and as 
we think back to the time of Elihu Stout we are 
filled with wonder and admiration. The bolts of 
ribbon-like white paper now pass over the rollers 
of this press and in a few moments come out, 
touched by printer's ink, which has been turned into 
human speech. This paper is folded into sheets of 
from four to two dozen pages, upon which one man's 
private thought in the morning is made public to the 
whole world in the evening. All the forces of civ- 
ilization have gone into this open letter to the peo- 
ple. The associated press has sent on, through the 
clicking of the wires, news which may tell of ships 
in distress at that time in mid-ocean, of the latest 
triumphs in science or government, of deeds of 
amelioration, of acts of heroism, of tragedy and 
comedy, of society and gossip, deaths and marriages, 
of religion and of letters, and mention of all the 



122 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

wants that can exist between producer and con- 
sumer. In this open letter to the world, each one 
who receives it finds the message that is there for 
him and leaves the rest for those to whom the other 
messages are sent. The evening meal and the eve- 
ning paper, brought to the doors of the homes, have 
now become equally necessary to the happiness of 
mankind. By the editorials in this letter, the public 
is educated, sentiment is created for juster things, 
and no force in the civilized world is greater in its 
scope and effectiveness than the daily press. 

John H. Holliday was not a beginner in newspaper 
work when he founded The Indianapolis News; he 
had for some time before this served a valuable ap- 
prenticeship on the Evening Gazette and the In- 
dianapolis Sentinel. The policy of the News was 
therefore predetermined by the definite views of its 
founder. It was an independent paper, unsensa- 
tional, not favoring the patronage of those who 
would use the public to serve their own ends, instead 
of serving the public with single-minded purpose 
themselves. The efficient body of men gathered by 
Mr. Holliday on the staff of his paper were clean- 
minded, scholarly, and able to seize the true situa- 
tion of society and of the country, and through tem- 
pered editorials yielded a powerful influence in the 
education of the people. The Associated Press dis- 
patches were employed by the News earlier than by 
any other evening paper. When Mr. Holliday re- 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 123 

tired from the News in 1892 the paper had been so 
impressed by the stamp of its founder that to-day 
its editorials are read and quoted throughout the 
Union and exert a great influence on national ques- 
tions and policy. The founder of the Indianapolis 
News administered justice to those in its employ, 
and without ostentation befriended those who were 
sick and unfortunate, a prestige which is observed 
by the News at the present time. 

The establishment of a two-cent evening paper 
was also a question in economics. The people were 
given the benefit derived from a cheaper rate of day 
labor, over a more expensive one of night labor. 

The Neius, as a pioneer two-cent evening paper, 
established a precedent which is now followed all 
over Indiana by editors, some of whom may not 
know where and when and by whom this practice 
began. 

John H. Holliday is easily one of the most dis- 
tinguished men in Indianapolis, if not in Indiana. 
Following his newspaper work he has been engaged 
in business and finance. He has given much of his 
time and means to works of public benefit in connec- 
tion with philanthropic organizations. He is the 
founder of a night school for the education of for- 
eigners. He is called in for consultation in matters 
of civic and educational interests, and his influence 
on the best side of all questions before the public can 
be relied upon. He was born in Indianapolis, May 



124 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

31, 1846. He was educated in the common schools 
of Indianapolis, in Butler University, then North- 
western Christian University, and in Hanover Col- 
lege. He served in the war for the Union in the 
One Hundred and Thirty-Seventh Indiana Volun- 
teer Infantry. He belongs to a pioneer Indiana 
family, his grandfather having come to the state in 
1816. 

Among the generous gifts of the Centennial year 
was that of eighty acres of land (valued at from 
one hundred thousand dollars to three hundred thou- 
sand dollars) on the banks of White river, from 
John H. Holliday and his wife, E valine Mac- 
Farlane Holliday, to the city of Indianapolis for a 
public park. This contained his summer residence 
and quite an acreage of undisturbed forest trees. 

Aside from his editorial work, Mr. Holliday has 
made valuable contributions to Indiana history in 
the way of pamphlets and historic papers, and the 
state and the city of Indianapolis are far richer for 
having in their midst a man of such noble character. 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 125 

WILLIAM A. BELL 
Torch Bearer in Educational Journalism 

The experience of more than thirty years of edu- 
cational journalism — twenty-six of which were spent 
as editor and proprietor of the Indiana School Jour- 
nal — entitles William A. Bell to a worthy place in 
the ranks of Torch Bearers. Mr. Bell was a grad- 
uate of Antioch College, Ohio, when Horace Mann 
was its president. The chief work of Horace Mann 
at Antioch College was training an army of Torch 
Bearers to go forth and fight against ignorance, 
against sin, against injustice and for Truth, for 
Humanity, and for God. It was here that Mr. Bell 
received the inspiration that permeated his whole 
life, not only in teaching but in journalistic work 
as well. 

In conducting this editorial work Mr. Bell firmly 
believed that an editor should have two things in 
view : first, along with all conscientious men in all 
lines of work, he should enter upon his profession 
to make an honest living for himself and family. 
This is his first religious duty and then, as far as 
within him lies, he should strive to stimulate his 
fellow men to higher thinking and better living. He 
should be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of 
principle, but not for the benefit of his subscription 
list. Following the rule of Horace Greeley, who 



126 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

said, "Give the people what they want and as much 
of that which they need as they will take," Mr. Bell 
aimed to give his readers the best they would take 
and to give it to them as rapidly as they would take it. 
In conducting the pages of the Indiana School Jour- 
nal, the needs and the best interests of Indiana teach- 
ers were always considered first, last and all the 
time. The advertising, which is so prominent a 
feature of many papers — and this does not belittle 
its importance — was held back, to give place to that 
which is of vital interest in the schoolroom. He 
called in as contributors and helpers the best writers 
in many lines of school work and the substance of 
many educational volumes, now ranking as authori- 
ties, were first introduced to many of the teachers 
of the state through the pages of the Indiana School 
Journal. Among the writers of these should be 
named Arnold Tompkins, now deceased, and W. H. 
Mace, now professor in Syracuse University. 

Mr. Bell found that editing a school journal — and 
the same fact is true in newspaper publicity gen- 
erally — is a most excellent method of learning that 
the world is made up of all sorts of people. He 
learned that while teachers as a class are a little above 
the average morally, there are those in their midst 
who forget to keep their promises, some who are 
willing to take something for nothing, some who are 
more sensitive than sensible, and some who are very 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 127 

fond of seeing their names in print. In his dealings 
with all the editor has his convictions and must ex- 
press them, but in doing so he need not give offense, 
he can discuss principles and not men. 

Mr. Bell was born at Michigantown, Indiana, and 
spent all his working years in the city of Indianap- 
olis, first as principal of Indianapolis High School 
and second as editor of the Indiana School Journal, 
which he sold in 1899. 

Mr. Bell, in his good-by, said that it is not an 
easy thing to take leave of the Journal and of its 
readers. "Thirty years of toil and companionship 
have made the Journal a part of my life. To sever 
connection with it is like taking final leave of a life- 
long friend. . . . 

"I can not finish this statement without saying 
that very much of the success of the Journal has 
been due to the work of Mrs. Bell. For many years 
she has worked in the office with me, and while she 
has had chiefly to do with the books and the cor- 
respondence, her good taste and judgment have been 
brought to bear on all parts of the work. But for 
her modesty her name would have appeared years 
ago as 'associate editor.' It is but the truth to say 
that the Journal could not have reached and sus- 
tained its admitted high standing among educational 
papers but for her efficient services." 

As closing words, showing how dear to his heart 



128 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

was the Journal that he had made one of the fore- 
most in the country, I quote again from his 
"good-by" : 

"I do not know what the future has in store for 
me, but this one thing I do know : neither time, nor 
space, nor any other condition can eradicate from 
my mind and heart the friendship and love I bear 
Indiana teachers, for whom and with whom I have 
labored so many years. May God keep and bless 
them all." 

The same year that the School Journal passed out 
of the hands of Mr. Bell, he was elected president 
of his alma mater, Antioch College, thus changing 
the area of his work and its influence, but not its 
kind nor degree. 

After three years at Antioch College, he returned 
to his home in Indianapolis to live the life of a 
private citizen of the best type; sane and just, con- 
siderate of others, never departing from the high 
principles which he had adopted and which ruled 
his conduct. 

After his death, which occurred in 1906, the In- 
dianapolis School Board decided to name one of its 
new and handsome buildings the William A. Bell 
Public School, thus honoring themselves by the se- 
lection. An admiring friend, Charles S. Lewis, has 
placed a bronze tablet, the work of a local artist, at 



LAW, HISTORY AND JOURNALISM 129 

the entrance of this building. The tablet bears the 
following inscription : 

1833-1906 
WILLIAM ALLEN BELL 

TEACHER AND CITIZEN 

Upright, Forthright, Steadfast, Tolerant. 
With a "high faith that failed not by the way." 

To the advancement of the public school system, 
and the enlightenment of the state, he gave the wise, 
ardent and unselfish service of his life. His char- 
acter was enriched, his face illumined, the world 
embettered because for life's best his best was given. 

In presenting this tablet Mr. Edward Daniels said : 
"This tablet should be thought of as something more 
than a memorial; it is an open book, a silent guide, 
a constant beacon. It may well be made — it should 
be made to-day and in all future days — a shrine of 
the lofty ideals of steadfastness and duty, of con- 
science and courage, of beauty and purity, to the 
pupils of this year and of all coming years." 



CHAPTER V 

Torch Bearers in Science and Invention 

SCIENCE study in Indiana began at New Har- 
mony and was in full operation there in 
1828. Robert Owen and his three illustrious sons, 
with other noted men to help them, started the 
movement for the study of science, not only in In- 
diana but in the New World along some lines. The 
eldest son, David Dale Owen, early in 1828 estab- 
lished there a geological laboratory and was ulti- 
mately appointed United States geologist for the 
Northwest and served at one time and another as 
geologist for Indiana, Kentucky and Arkansas, his 
headquarters being at New Harmony. Richard 
Owen, then also a geologist, was later a science pro- 
fessor in Indiana University, where a hall now bears 
his name. 

In New Harmony at this time there were also 
other noted scientists. Among them were : Thomas 
Say, from Philadelphia, busily engaged in his work 
on conchology and in publishing papers on entomol- 
ogy, since given to the world in book form; there 
was William McClure, geologist and philanthropist, 
who was also founder of the Philadelphia Academy 
of Science; Lesseuer, a French naturalist, was at 
this time making a study of the fishes of the Wa- 

130 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 131 

bash. Dr. Gerald Troost, a German geologist, sub- 
sequently made a geological survey of Tennessee 
and became president of Tennessee University. 
This lengthy list of scientists in New Harmony in 
1828 by no means represents all the educational 
forces gathered there. 

Science as classified knowledge includes all activ- 
ities and theories which attempt to establish laws 
from given data and from inference. 



DAVID STARR JORDAN 
Torch Bearer in Many Realms of Science 

David Starr Jordan brought to Indiana the torch 
of Science, which he had received from the hand of 
the great Agassiz at Penikese. It would be impos- 
sible to tell here all the great achievements accom- 
plished by Dr. Jordan, and indeed an enumeration 
of his degrees and honors would be superfluous in 
speaking of a man of such world-wide reputation 
as he has made for himself. He has named the 
fishes of North America, classified the birds in the 
United States, worked in connection with the 
United States Fish Commission and Seal Fisheries. 
While connected with the schools and colleges of 
Indiana, and later as president of the Leland Stan- 
ford University of California, he proved himself 
a great teacher and leader in education. 



132 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

But perhaps his most lasting contribution to the 
world of the future will be his writings. For his 
subjects he has chosen ethical, scientific and fanciful 
topics. No one has put scientific truth for younger 
minds in a more charming form than is to be found 
in his "Story of a Stone" and also his "Sketch of 
the Salmon." His style is everywhere marked with 
the utmost simplicity and much of his verse has a 
rare quality. One of the books that ought to be on 
the library table of every young person is "The 
Strength of Being Clean." No one could know that 
book thoroughly and not be a better person. Dr. 
Jordan has been one of the champions of the world 
peace movement, and at the present time devotes 
his leisure to writing and lecturing, at home and 
abroad. No description seems to suit him so well as 
the appellation given him by a friend who always 
calls him "The Homeric Man." 

Dr. Jordan was asked by the author of this book 
to write a letter entitled "When I Was in Indiana." 
In answer to this request, he sent the following 
communication. This is interesting because it shows 
from Dr. Jordan's own point of view what he did 
for education as well as for pure science in 
our state. 

dr. Jordan's letter 

I was in Indiana from 1874 to 1891, in 1874-1875 
as teacher of biology in the Indianapolis High 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 133 

School, in 1875-1879 as professor of biology and 
dean of science in Butler University (then known as 
Northwestern Christian University, later, 1877, as 
Butler University, and now as Butler College). In 
1879 I became professor of biology in the Indiana 
University at Bloomington, and from 1884 to 1891 
I was president of that institution. I was therefore 
seventeen years in Indiana, and I passed through the 
whole gamut of the educational institutions of the 
state. 

I was born in New York in 1851, to be exact, and 
I came to Indiana from Harvard, where I was one 
of the very latest to work under Agassiz and to 
catch a bit of the inspiration of that wonderful 
teacher. 

The Indianapolis High School opened the year 
with a remarkable body of teachers, many of them 
being new. These were the choice of the far- 
sighted superintendent, George P. Brown. Among 
those already in service I knew best Mary E. Nich- 
olson, beloved and respected by many generations of 
high school students, and Fidelia Anderson, likewise 
for many years a deserved favorite. Among the new 
teachers there was Junius B. Roberts, the principal, 
whom I had known before as the principal of the 
high school at Galesburg. I believe he claimed the 
credit, such as it was, of bringing me to Indiana. 
But it was also claimed, with some show of positive- 
ness, by Mr. Brown. It has also been placed to the 



134 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

credit of my predecessor, Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, 
that he "discovered" me, as doubtless he did. I also 
discovered Wiley and have counted him on the list 
of my valued friends ever since. Other notable 
members of the staff were Lewis H. Jones, in 
pedagogy, who had also studied in Harvard un- 
der Agassiz. William W. Parsons was also on 
the staff, the honored president for some thirty 
years of the State Normal School of Indiana at 
Terre Haute. The teacher of mathematics was Ed- 
win Thompson, a fine-spirited young man, with his 
wife, a language teacher of remarkable cleverness. 
Mr. Thompson died untimely and his widow, after- 
ward the wife of Theodore L. Sewall, has become 
known the world over as May Wright Sewall, apos- 
tle of woman's suffrage and of international peace. 

Charles Emmerich, teacher of German, was a 
man of fine character, as "gemuthlich" a German as 
ever whipped a delinquent declension into line. 
Charity Dye, teacher in the grades, and Nebraska 
Cropsey, superintendent of primary instruction, are 
names that have sunk deep into my memory. 

Several of these new teachers remained in the 
high school for a year only, passing over into the 
colleges or the Normal School. Among the stu- 
dents of that day were some of notable ability. Two 
of those who have followed my own lines of work 
are Charles H. Gilbert, professor of zoology at 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 135 

Stanford, and Charles A. Nutting, professor of zo- 
ology in the University of Iowa. 

When I arrived in Indiana I knew no one in the 
state. When the people told me that I would learn 
to love Indianapolis, I felt very grave doubts. But 
it came about, and to-day I doubt if any city of its 
size in the Union contains more fine-spirited and in- 
telligent men than in those days used to gather in 
the Indianapolis Club or to cluster around such 
leaders as Oscar McCulloch, Myron Reed, Dr. 
Brayton, Theodore Sewall, Lucius Swift or "Pink" 
Fishback. And all of us felt the benign and human- 
izing influence of our unique poet, James Whitcomb 
Riley. 

In those days the village of Brookville had a 
natural history society, which, under the direction 
of Amos Butler, grew and overspread the state, be- 
coming the Indiana Academy of Science, with regu- 
lar meetings, ever since the day of its first meeting, 
with myself, if I remember, in the chair as presi- 
dent. Notable in this academy was John Coulter, 
of Wabash, serene, jovial, and always ready to 
break a lance on "the bloody sands" in behalf of 
science and in behalf of the "element of consent" 
in education. To go over the long roll of the acad- 
emy would be invidious, but we must not forget the 
solidest of our members, Dr. David W. Dennis, of 
Earlham. Oliver P. Jenkins, of DePauw, and Bar- 



136 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

ton W. Evermann, of the Normal School, now both 
in California, ranked high among the "stand-bys" 
of science in those days in Indiana. 

In 1879 I went to Butler College ; here I had older 
students than in the high school, not better. Many 
of them were the same, as Charley Gilbert, Romeo 
Johnson and others. Of the new ones I remember 
with special pleasure Hilton Brown, of the Indian- 
apolis News, and his brother, Demarchus, who be- 
came professor of Greek. One of the distinguished 
professors in Butler College was Catharine Merrill, 
a woman whose uplifting influence lives beyond her 
generation. 

At Butler University, I began, in Georgia, the 
exploration of the rivers of the United States as 
to their fish inhabitants, and good luck has enabled 
me to carry these explorations over half the earth. 
As Izaak Walton observed: "It is good luck to 
any man to be on the good side of the man that 
knows fish." 

In 1879, Judge Roach and other friends called me 
to the state university at Bloomington, where I re- 
mained twelve years, the last seven as president. 
The best things I did there were these two : The in- 
troduction of the elective system of study in the 
"major professor" form work, for it fitted educa- 
tion to the individual student, his own education, 
not a hand-me-down," ready-made intellectual suit. 
With better and more enthusiastic work both for 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 137 

teachers and students it brought a notable increase 
of numbers. Bloomington was placed on the map 
and the state university, in spite of its misfortune of 
fire and of other events, came to stand where it be- 
longed, at the head of the school system of Indiana. 

Hitherto new professors had been mainly sought 
from the East, and, as a rule, only the second-rate 
or the young would accept. After some not very 
successful attempts to do better, I promised chairs 
to certain alumni on condition that they should ade- 
quately prepare in Europe or in the East. Among 
these at the beginning were Swain, Bryan, Hoff- 
man, Woodburn and Philputt. 

Of these Joseph Swain and William Lowe Bryan 
have successively filled the president's chair. They 
brought what the university most needed in its 
teaching staff, character, enthusiasm and loyalty. 
Meanwhile, so far as I am concerned, I have lived 
in California for a quarter of a century. This time 
has not been without its hopes, its fears, its risks 
and its adventures. But all this is another story. 



138 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 



JOHN STOUGH BOBBS 

Whose Torch of Surgery Brought Renown 
to Indiana 

Lister in England discovered antisepsis; Morton 
of the United States gave to the world anaesthesia. 
These discoveries are among the greatest of the 
nineteenth century, and indeed, of modern times. 

John Stough Bobbs of Indiana won laurels for 
his state in surgery as founder of cholecystotomy. 
He was the first to open the gall bladder, and for 
this great achievement his name ranks with Morton 
and Lister. This operation, which is now per- 
formed in every clinic throughout the world and 
which has been the means of saving thousands of 
lives, was unknown until 1867. 

John Stough Bobbs was born at Green Village, 
Pennsylvania, in 1809; here he obtained the rudi- 
ments of his education at the common school. At 
the age of eighteen he went on foot to Harrisburg to 
seek employment. Here he met Dr. Martin Luther, 
who befriended him and gave him a place to study 
medicine in his office. Young Bobbs took advantage 
of every opportunity and in three years fitted himself 
for the practice of medicine. He followed the med- 
ical profession for four years in Middletown, Penn- 
sylvania. Having at this time fixed upon surgery as 
his special work, he felt compelled to seek a larger 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 139 

field and moved to Indianapolis in 1835, at the age 
of twenty-six. The next year he took a course at 
Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, and re- 
ceived the degree of Doctor of Medicine. 

In the then small town of Indianapolis Dr. Bobbs 
took high rank both as a physician and surgeon. 
Unlike many professional men, the practical and 
business side of life was not neglected in his case. 
He had a good knowledge of English, in which he 
wrote well and spoke fluently, and a limited knowl- 
edge of Latin. He also conversed readily in Ger- 
man, though he used a vernacular and not a pure 
German. He was well versed in the English 
classics. 

There was nothing of sham about Dr. Bobbs, and 
it was said of him that he had never been known 
to give a placebo in any case. To the younger men 
in his profession his goodness and generosity knew 
no bounds. He gave to the poor not only his serv- 
ices but money with which to buy food and medi- 
cine, and his charities were always rendered with- 
out display or ostentation. 

One pathetic instance of this is told by a resident 
physician who invited the professor, not long before 
his death, to a consultation in the country. Upon 
their way home from their visit, the doctor was 
hailed by a person from a cabin on the wayside, and 
requested to see a sick child. Discovering that the 
case was a bad one, he slipped to the door and 



140 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

called Dr. Bobbs, who, after examining the patient, 
returned to his carriage, leaving the doctor to 
make out his prescription. When the latter came 
back to the carriage, Dr. Bobbs said to him : "Doc- 
tor, this child is going to die and the poor woman 
will not have wherewith to bury it." Withdrawing 
his hand from his pocket, and presenting it with the 
palm downward, as if to conceal from the left what 
the right hand was doing, he dropped into the ex- 
tended hand of the doctor a ten-dollar gold piece. 
"Give that," he said, "to the widow; it will comfort 
her in the approaching extremity." 

While Dr. Bobbs recognized a code of ethics, 
for himself he never needed it. In his own unselfish 
nature and life he was far superior to any code ever 
devised. He was, indeed, honor and fair-dealing- 
personified. And still, he was always lenient toward 
the faults and shortcomings of others. 

The latter part of Dr. Bobbs' life was devoted 
mainly to surgery, in which he was a master; and 
as an operator he was original and bold almost to 
recklessness. 

It was only a few years before his death that he 
performed the operation that proved to be his pass- 
port to a page in surgical history for all time to 
come. 

When the Medical College of Indiana was or- 
ganized, Dr. Bobbs was elected professor of sur- 
gery, and later dean of the faculty. The dispensary 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 141 

that Dr. Bobbs endowed at the time of his death is 
still carried on as the "Bobbs Dispensary of the In- 
diana Medical College." He also founded the 
Bobbs Library in the Medical College of Indiana, 
which contains the most valuable collection of med- 
ical works in the state. Dr. Bobbs was one of the 
original commissioners who organized the Indiana 
Hospital for the Insane. 

He answered the call of patriotism in 1861 and 
was appointed by Governor Morton during the Re- 
bellion as an agent for this state; in this capacity 
he visited the soldiers of Indiana in fields and hos- 
pitals; supervised their medical and surgical treat- 
ment, and did valuable service in looking after their 
general welfare. He was ever active and efficient 
in all public movements affecting the interests of his 
city. He was a forcible writer and wrote much on 
professional and public subjects. 

Dr. Bobbs was a model friend, superior to all dis- 
simulation, and spoke the truth with such frankness 
and earnestness that it was impossible to take of- 
fense at it. He felt and knew that 

"The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man's the gowd for a' that." 

He never gave up a friend until that person had, 
by some violation of principle, proved himself un- 
worthy of his regard. 

Dr. Bobbs is described in appearance as slender, 



142 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

of medium height, and strong-molded features. His 
forehead was large, his eyes dark gray, his nose 
large and aquiline, his lips full and the chin promi- 
nent. His attire was faultless; he had to perfec- 
tion the manner of the old style gentleman. In ad- 
dress he was dignified and affable, making free use 
of the words "Sir" and "Madame." 

He died in 1870, and, although enfeebled in 
health, up to the last he continued his studies and 
brought to his medical teaching the zest of an ear- 
lier time. He was a strong advocate for the estab- 
lishment of a state medical journal and a school in 
the interest of medical progress. 

It is nearly half a century since Dr. Bobbs passed 
away, but his memory is still fresh in the hearts of 
his comrades in the profession of medicine, and In- 
diana is proud of her son on the honor roll of high 
service to humanity. 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 143 



GEORGE A. REISNER 

Who Now Bears the Archaeologist's 
Torch in Egypt 

Indiana has a right to be proud of her son and 
scholar, George A. Reisner, now one of the noted 
Egyptologists of the world. He was born in Indi- 
anapolis in 1867 and was graduated from Short- 
ridge High School. Upon entering Harvard he 
soon received recognition for his linguistic aptitude 
and to-day he is one of the most noted Egyptolo- 
gists known. He has conducted expeditions for 
study, made discoveries, worked out inscriptions, 
identified a royal cemetery and excavated in many 
provinces of Egypt; besides, he has written books 
upon the results of his study. It enlarges the 
boundaries of Indiana when one thinks of so many 
of her sons so far away in so many fields of activ- 
ities. Mr. Reisner is all too modest in the letter 
which follows : 

Harvard Camp, Pyramids, Cairo, 

May 2, 1916. 

Dear : Your note of March 24 has just 

reached me after following me about for several 
weeks. I left Merawi, Dongola Province, Sudan, 
on April 24, and your note went up the river and 
was sent back again. I am very much pleased that 



144 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

you have taken the trouble to tell me about the Indi- 
ana centennial year. It is impossible to escape the 
memories of school life at home or to forget how 
much I am indebted to the men and women who 
gave me my training. 

But hard driven by my work (I am sure none of 
you realize how hard), and lacking the knack of 
popular narrative, I can only regret exceedingly my 
inability to write an article about our experiences. I 
say "our," for, as you will remember, my wife, 
Mary Bronson, was a high-school girl, while my 
daughter bears her mother's name. They share 
with me the camp life and the traveling, and take a 
proper interest in the excavations. One of the most 
characteristic signs of our long exile is the fact that 
my daughter speaks Arabic, as well as French, Eng- 
lish and German — the English, I am afraid, without 
any trace of the real "Hoosier" accent, in spite of 
the good example of her father. 

We have lived in tents on the Hill of Samaria and 
in a houseboat (dahabiyah) on the Nile in Nubia. 
We have wandered from Constantinople as far 
south as Sennaar on the Blue Nile. But it has always 
been the work which has carried us from place to 
place and landed us in strange camps. We have 
never "traveled" and I am the last person you 
should think of requesting to write a "picturesque" 
account of his experiences. If you had asked me to 
tell you about the methods of the expedition and its 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 145 

wonderful organization of Egyptian workmen, the 
tale would have been a plain and easy one. But peo- 
ple have generally a mental picture of an archaeolo- 
gist as a person of mystery seeking out hidden pas- 
sages, coming on magnificent treasures of gold, 
and communing with mummies dangerous with an- 
cient magic. As a matter of fact, he is an ordinary 
scientist engaged in field work as a branch of his- 
torical research and he takes his treasures and his 
mummies, the latter not very gratefully either, as 
valuable by-products of his labors. When he at- 
tempts the excavation of a site, he regards it not as 
a repository of buried wonders, but as a human doc- 
ument compiled through centuries by the activ- 
ities of ancient generations. His work is to take 
the mound apart in the inverse order to that in 
which it was built, observe and interpret every fact 
it may contain, and so finally reconstruct the history 
of the site. That history gives him in miniature the 
history of the country, possibly even of the ancient 
races which had lived and died there. Every piece 
of work, conscientiously performed, brings its con- 
tribution to the history of man. 

One man cannot with his own hands move the 
thousands of tons of earth which even a single tem- 
ple may contain, nor with his own eyes watch the 
breaking and removal of every foot of every 
stratum. It is necessary to train other men to act as 
one's hands and eyes. This is why the expedition 



146 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

values so highly its trained Egyptians. They are 
the actual excavators. This winter we have been 
unearthing the temples and pyramids at Napata, the 
capital of Ethiopa, which is on the northern part of 
the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. I may say in passing 
that our work there in this time of war was only 
possible through the security afforded by a strong 
and efficient English government and by the assist- 
ance and kindness of the English officials. To re- 
turn to my point, the actual excavations at Napata 
were made by fifty of my skilled Egyptians; and it 
required three hundred local workmen of the Shag- 
iah tribe to carry out the earth which the Egyptians 
removed. Egyptian overseers ran the gangs and 
three Egyptian boys took all the photographs and 
developed them. Thus my assistant, Mr. Dunham, 
and I myself were left free to direct the work and 
to make the mass of plans, drawings and notes nec- 
essary to a proper record of the work. The ideal 
in recording is to make it possible for the distant 
scholar to reconstruct for himself all which we did 
and all which we saw. This means very hard work, 
up before sunrise and to bed at nine. Sleeping in 
the open air makes a daylight day much easier than 
it is at home in a darkened house. 

Successful, honest, hard work is, I believe, its 
own best compensation everywhere. The other re- 
wards are equally personal and subjective and I 
doubt whether the special pleasures of the archaeol- 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 147 

ogist differ either in quality or quantity from those 
of other professions. Every profession has its 
great moments. One of my own came last winter 
when I realized that I had found a portrait statue 
of Tirhakah, King of Ethiopia (II Kings, xix, 9). 
But great moments pass and are quickly forgotten. 
The best that remains with me from my winter are 
quite common things, spray flying from the bows of 
the motor boat, a sunset at Nuri looking across the 
river to the bare hills and the desert screened by 
palm trees, just such memories as stick by me from 
the old days at home. 

Give my affectionate regards to any of my old 
friends you may see and believe me as ever, yours 
most faithfully, George A. Reisner. 



148 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

MARY WRIGHT PLUMMER 
Torch Bearer in Library Science 

IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Whatever be thy fortune or thy state 

The zvay to high companionship is free; 
Here are they all — the wise, the good, the great — 

And their best thoughts they offer unto thee. 
How canst thou give thy life to sordid things 

While Milton's strains in rhythmic numbers roll, 
Or Shakespeare probes thy heart, or Homer sings, 

Or rapt Isaiah wakes thy slumbering soul? 
If these " king's treasuries" were scant and rare 

How woiildst thou yearn for all that they contain! 
But they are spread before thee free as air, 

And shall their priceless jewels shine in vain? 
The choice is thine, the fancies of a day, 
Or the bright gems that shall endure for aye. 

W. D. F. 

At a memorial meeting R. R. Bowker said : 
We are to do honor and to give thanks for a 
friend, a helper, and a leader in a great profession; 
and that honor can best be done by emphasis on the 
work and the influence which her name means to all 
of us. A student of man must emphasize heredity 
and environment in the making of character. It is 
good to know that Mary Wright Plummer came of 
Quaker and pioneer stock, and that she was born — 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 149 

" 'twas sixty years since" — in that quiet Quaker 
town of Richmond, Indiana, which has sent forth 
so many men and women of worth into the larger 
world. Her quiet manner came from the Quaker 
stock, her energy and power from the pioneer stock. 
As you have journeyed down from among the hills, 
along a river made up of the rills from the moun- 
tainside, you have come sometimes to a lovely lake, 
calm and unruffled, mirroring on its placid surface 
the beauty of sky and shore. Then as you come 
farther down the valley you note where the reserve 
force from that reservoir is transformed into 
power, and in these modern days you see next those 
almost unseeable filaments which convey this power 
to far-off and varied fields of industry. It seems 
to me that this is peculiarly a simile and a symbol 
of our friend and her life, her work with its far- 
reaching influence, silent and invisible, which all of 
us know, which we in part only represent in this 
gathering here, and which will go on far beyond the 
life which is closed, the life of any of us now and 
here present. 

It was not until the plenitude of womanhood, in 
fact, until more than half of her years as we now 
count them, had passed, that Miss Plummer came to 
her life-calling in this great library profession, 
which she honored, and in which we have honored 
her. But earlier she had come into touch with the 
literary life, for the magazines, at least early in the 



150 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

eighties, were publishing poems from her pen, which 
were collected afterward. 

She was a pioneer, as you well know, in library 
work, for it was only the pioneers who became 
members of that first class of 1888 in the first li- 
brary school which called her and fitted her for the 
library profession. Before the Friends' Associa- 
tion, and later before this very club she read, in 
1897, a paper which was reprinted in the Library 
Journal for November of that year, and which 
prophesied in a wonderful way the purposes and the 
methods of the children's library of to-day, in a de- 
velopment which then only the highest imagination 
could reach. In her library work, as you know, she 
reaped all honors of achievement and of fulfillment 
and of the highest usefulness. It was in 1890, after 
a year at St. Louis, and after her first visit to Eu- 
rope, that she came to us in Brooklyn, and became 
associated with the Pratt Institute Library, where 
she remained either as the director of the library or 
of the library school until she came in 1911 to her 
great work in shaping the library school of the New 
York Public Library. I need only recall that she was 
president of the New York Library Club, of the 
Long Island Library Club, which was for a time 
separated from this, of the New York State Asso- 
ciation, and of the American Library Association; 
and even our own country was not the only field for 
her work. 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 151 

She was in every way great, a great woman, a 
great friend, and a great librarian. She was also in 
her way a great scholar, for she mastered not only 
French and German, but Italian and Spanish, and 
made herself so sympathetic with the latter country 
as to compile the volume from the modern Spanish 
novelists on "Contemporary Spain," as well as to 
compile for the children the "Stories from the 
Chronicle of the Cid." 

There is always one thought present in my mind 
when I come to think of such a life as this. It is 
the doctrine of the apostolic succession translated 
into the secular world. In this our friend was a 
most shining example. We often hear the classic 
simile of passing the torch on from one to the other. 
Perhaps in these modern days the simile transforms 
itself, as I have suggested, into those invisible cur- 
rents which reach far afield, which no man can see, 
and which no man can to the end measure. But I 
may mention one or two specific instances which 
will show you how much her life meant in such rela- 
tion. In this palace of the people, the greatest pub- 
lic library of the greatest library system in the 
world, where she did the last of her great work, we 
may well remember that it was through her sugges- 
tion that the present director of the library made 
choice of the library calling and ultimately came to 
this place. It was from her lips that he learned of 
the library profession, and found in it his true call- 



152 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

ing in turn. And when he went to Pittsburgh, there 
he started the school for children's librarians, as a 
specialization from the library school which she had 
developed from the training class at Pratt Institute. 
How much that means in library work, this first 
school for children's librarians in Pittsburgh, you 
know better than I. But there is a still more strik- 
ing example. Among the students in Miss Plum- 
mer's classes was Miss Wood, whom you know as 
the librarian of Boone College, in China, a light- 
house for that dark empire, an empire ready to re- 
ceive, not that civilization of the West which comes 
by force of arms, but that higher and finer civiliza- 
tion which this profession and this building and 
Miss Plummer and Miss Wood represent. The 
Boone College Library became at once the source of 
library inspiration for China; and last year Miss 
Plummer had the pleasure of graduating from this 
school Mr. Seng, who had no sooner got back to 
China with immense ideals, immense hopes, im- 
mense purpose for the deliverance of his people, 
then came Mr. Hsu, who is now a student in this 
school. You will see that there has been a leading 
out from this one woman, through one person after 
another, so that the antipodes are really to be helped 
and guided in large measure by her influence. Ev- 
erywhere through the library world she is known 
and remembered, for in 1900 she represented us in 
the library councils of the Paris Exposition. Every- 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 153 

where in Europe, she had friendships, as with Pro- 
fessor Biagi in Florence, her intimate friend, and 
with others in England, in France and in Scandina- 
via. All these count as her friends, catching up her 
inspiration and extending her work. It is a radia- 
tion of influence, this true apostolic succession that 
I would emphasize to you as the real meaning of 
this life which is closed after a generation of work. 
I speak of the radiation of influence, but I think 
that in her case we should speak rather of the radi- 
ance of influence. For it was a shining light which 
went forth from her into the dark corners, into all 
parts of the library work, into all parts of the 
library world. That is a great thing to leave 
behind. We can scarcely hope for ourselves any 
greater achievement, any greater thing to leave 
behind us when we go ; and now that she is gone we 
do not so much mourn her as we rejoice, not in her 
perfected work, but in the work which will always 
be perfecting through the many people who follow 
her and honor her. 

By permission of Friends' Intelligencer. 



154 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 



ELWOOD HAYNES 

Torch Bearer in Invention — Creator of the 
First Automobile 

It is a rare piece of good fortune to hear a man 
tell of his first inception of the idea of an invention 
and how it materialized into working shape for the 
world. Mr. Haynes has done this for us in a most 
interesting manner in the following letter. 

Dear : I hope the following will answer 

your inquiry. In 1888, while living at Portland, 
Ind., I was superintendent of the Portland Natural 
Gas and Oil Company. We were obliged to pipe 
the gas a distance of ten miles from a small village 
called Pennville. This necessitated much driving 
back and forth between these villages and, as the 
horse frequently became tired, I thought something 
better could be employed in the nature of a mechan- 
ical carriage. 

I thought about making a light machine with four 
wheels similar in general construction to the bicycle. 
At first I expected to use steam as a motor power, 
but after considering the matter for a while I 
thought there would be objections to a steam engine 
and water in connection with road travel. After- 
ward I considered using the storage battery in con- 
nection with an electric motor, but I could not get 
a storage battery light enough for the purpose. 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 155 

. . I next considered the use of the gasoline 
engine, and this seemed to hold out the greatest 
promise for success. 

In 1890 I moved to Greentown, Ind., where I 
had charge of a large gas field which was to supply 
gas to the city of Chicago. The drilling of the wells 
and the laying of the pipe lines in this new field 
caused much more driving than before, and it was 
then that the idea began to assume definite form in 
my mind, and two years later, when I moved to Ko- 
komo, I decided to begin the actual construction of 
a machine. I had only made some drawings before 
leaving Greentown, but I changed these from time 
to time. After reaching Kokomo I finally decided 
on a formal construction that I thought would op- 
erate to fair advantage when completed. I was so 
busy in the gas field, however, that I did not have 
time to begin the actual construction until October, 
1893, five years after I first began to think about it. 
At that time I bought a little one-horsepower boat 
engine. I first fastened this little engine to the kitchen 
floor of my home and after a great deal of cranking 
succeeded in starting it. It ran with such vigor and 
vibration that it pulled itself loose from the floor and 
might have done some damage except for the fact 
that one of the battery wires wound round the shaft 
of the engine, thus cutting off the current, causing 
the engine to stop. 

The vibration of the engine was so great that I 



156 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

decided to build a stronger and heavier frame than 
at first intended. This framework was made of 
steel tubing and shaped like a hollow square. 

When this machine, with its equipments, was 
nearly completed it was taken out into the street for 
trial. Up to this time the people living in the city 
knew nothing about the construction of the carriage, 
and as soon as they saw it they became interested 
and crowded about it in such large numbers that it 
became dangerous to start it, particularly as a large 
part of the crowd consisted of women and children. 
I decided, therefore, that we would attach the car- 
riage behind a horse-drawn vehicle and convey it 
into the country. This was on the 4th day of July, 
1894, and after reaching a point about three miles 
from this city the machine was started. Three per- 
sons got into the vehicle and drove about one and 
one-half miles farther into the country, when we 
stopped the machine and turned it about toward 
town. When we got back to where the horse stood, 
one of the men got off, while the remaining two of 
us rode on into the city, a distance, all told, of about 
four or five miles, without making a single stop. 
The power of the engine was small compared with 
that of modern machines, and the little car ran only 
about six or seven miles per hour. I was convinced, 
however, that a new form of locomotion for the 
highway would soon be developed. 

Crude as it was, this little machine ran at very 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 157 

slight expense. At that time gasoline was only 
about eight cents per gallon. The little engine used 
only about one pint of gasoline per hour on good 
roads, and it was thus possible to travel a mile on 
the small expense of only about one-eighth of a cent. 

The same summer the one-horsepower motor was 
replaced by another having about two horsepower 
and soon afterward pneumatic tires were put on 
instead of the cushion tires. The speed of the ma- 
chine was thus increased to about twelve miles per 
hour and under favorable conditions it would run 
fourteen or fifteen miles per hour. 

In 1895 I formed a partnership with Mr. Elmer 
Apperson, in whose shop the first machine was built. 
Together we designed and built a four-passenger 
machine. This was entered in the Times-Herald 
contest. ... It ran quite well, though an acci- 
dent due to the skidding of the car and the conse- 
quent breaking of the rim of one of the wheels pre- 
vented us from entering the actual race. We were, 
however, awarded a prize of $150 for the best-bal- 
anced engine entered in the contest. . . . 

In 1897 we built another four-passenger machine. 
This was a distinct advance over anything before 
constructed. It was fitted with a two-cylinder en- 
gine and attained a speed up to twenty miles or more 
an hour. It ran several hundred miles all told. I 
have always regretted that this machine was not 
preserved, since it showed a marked advance and 



158 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

conclusively demonstrated that the horseless car- 
riage had come to stay. 

Other machines followed in succession and Mr. 
Edgar Apperson and the writer boarded one of these 
machines of the two-passenger style and drove from 
Kokomo all the way to New York in 1899. . . . 
We made the trip from Albany to New York in 
about ten hours' running time. 

Even then the horseless carriage was such a nov- 
elty in New York that we were followed into a side 
street by a yelling crowd of small boys and were 
soon surrounded by a large crowd of curious spec- 
tators. The New York Herald gave me a royal 
welcome at their offices. We were covered with 
dust and grime, but this did not in any way dampen 
their enthusiasm; in fact, the dust-covered appear- 
ance of the machine and its passengers seemed to 
add to their zest and interest. Several columns were 
printed next day, together with a photograph of the 
unique machine and its dust-begrimed passengers, 
who looked more like a couple of tramps than oc- 
cupants of a triumphal car. 

A little more than two years ago the writer made 
a trip from Indianapolis to Los Angeles by the way 
of San Francisco, California, in a six-cylinder car, 
passing directly over the Rocky Mountains. This 
trip was so successful in every respect that the occu- 
pants suffered little or no discomfort except that due 
to too extreme heat and extreme cold and varying 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 159 

climatic conditions. The motor ran even more 
smoothly at the end of the journey than when 
started. The car mounted the hills without the 
slightest trouble and was able to attain a speed of 
eight miles or more per hour on the steepest inclines 
encountered. 

When I contrast the automobile of to-day and 
that of its early beginning I am impressed by two 
facts that stand out prominently: First, the rapid 
progress made possible by modern science and mod- 
ern engineering ; second, the great purchasing power 
of the American public and its capacity to utilize a 
new invention. 

It is needless to add that the rapid development, 
utility and extensive use of the automobile has far 
exceeded the fondest dreams of my early experi- 
ence. A marked contrast in mode of travel comes 
to mind at this point. "Back in the 'SOs" my father 
rode a horse through the woods from Portland, 
Ind., to Kokomo in three days. In 1907, my little 
daughter drove a four-passenger automobile carry- 
ing ladies — only excepting her little brother — on 
practically the same road in just four hours. 

You ask me about my early life and education. 
I was born in Portland, Ind., and at the age of four- 
teen tried my hand at invention, succeeding with an 
apparatus for making oxygen gas and with several 
other things. 

When twenty-one I entered the Worcester Poly- 



160 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

technic Institute, from which I was graduated in 
three years, having for my thesis "The Effect of 
Tungsten on Iron and Steel." Returning to Port- 
land, Ind., I was principal of the Portland High 
School during the years of 1883 and 1884. The 
next year I entered the Johns Hopkins University, 
Baltimore, Md., and took a post-graduate course in 
chemistry and biology. Returning again to Port- 
land, I taught science in the Eastern Indiana Normal 
School for the two following years. After this I 
entered the commercial and industrial world, where 
I now am. 

A contemporary writer says of Mr. Haynes and 
his invention : "The crude carriage that was a 
curiosity twenty years ago and less was the begin- 
ning of the greatest transportation aid since the birth 
of civilization. Because of it our standards of living 
have become higher. For what he gave America, 
Elwood Haynes is entitled to honor along with 
Stephenson and his locomotive and Fulton and his 
steamboat." 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 161 



JAMES BUCHANAN EADS 

The Man Who Bore the Engineer's Torch 
in Two Worlds 

The story of James Buchanan Eads is a true won- 
der story. He was born at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, 
on the Ohio river, May 23, 1820, and is called one 
of the first engineers of the world. Eads knew more 
about the Mississippi river system than any other 
man in America. He said, "There is not a space of 
fifty miles in the long stretch from New Orleans to 
St. Louis over some part of which I have not walked 
on the bed in my diving bell." He had the scientific 
mind and he looked upon this great river system as 
an evidence of the Creator's law as eternal as the law 
of gravitation, and told the commissioners in his 
great project of the jetties that not a grain of sand 
was left in place by the water, or an eddy in the cur- 
rent but was there by the great law that had existed 
from the beginning. He can be called "the master 
of the Father of Waters," for he connected its banks 
by the great bridge, he cleared its channel by his jet- 
ties, he relieved it from the snags of sunken boats 
as a menace to travel, and died with great schemes 
still in his mind. 

The Eads family went from Lawrenceburg to 
Cincinnati and from thence to Louisville, all on the 
great Ohio, for it was a great river to the inventive 



162 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

mind of the growing boy who had at the age of 
ten constructed models of saw-mills, fire engines, 
steamboats and other machines. At the age of thir- 
teen Eads went with his parents to St. Louis, the 
place which was to be the scene of his great achieve- 
ments and triumphs. Just before reaching that 
place the boat upon which they traveled burned and 
the Eads family landed in the city without the 
necessities of life. The young boy came forward 
as the man of the family, and peddled apples from 
a basket, passing often over the spot where he was 
to place one of the piers of his great bridge later in 
life. By some chance a man at the boarding-house 
saw the promise of Eads and gave him employment. 
Upon acquaintance he became further interested in 
the young boy and opened to him his library, where 
the lad reveled, and single-handed made himself ac- 
quainted with the world of letters. 

The first great scheme in which Eads became in- 
terested was that of removing the cargoes of sunken 
boats from the Ohio and Mississippi. 

He had in the meantime appeared before Congress 
offering to relieve the Mississippi and its tributaries 
of snags and debris and other hindrances to boat 
travel, for a specified consideration; but Congress 
rejected his plan. One result, however, of this ap- 
pearance before Congress was that he was made ac- 
quainted in Washington, and when the great Civil 
War broke out and the president sought some one 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 163 

who could go forward and advise regarding a way 
to secure the Mississippi river to the Union, Eads 
was sent for, and upon going to Washington, signed 
a contract for seven iron-clad boats to be made in 
sixty-five days. No fairy tale is more wonderful 
than this feat by the great engineer. When he 
signed the contract many of the trees to make the 
boats were standing in the forest; the iron, some of 
it, was in the mine, and yet within two weeks he had 
engaged four thousand men and stopped neither for 
the darkness of night nor the sacredness of Sun- 
day. He put the choppers and the saw-mills and 
the foundries and the laborers all to work, and 
within one hundred days he had not only completed 
the seven boats stipulated for, but built an eighth. 
This was before Ericson's Monitor encountered the 
Merrimac. 

The plans set forth for these iron-clad boats are 
still considered to be scientific. After this the idea 
of spanning the Mississippi with a great bridge at- 
tracted his attention. He proposed in this plan an 
arch of five hundred and twenty feet span, the 
largest arch proposed in the world at that time. 
His fellow engineers fought his scheme bravely and 
tried to show the inadequacy of such an undertak- 
ing, but the master engineer had covered the ground 
and studied the situation and knew whereof he 
spoke. The St. Louis bridge to-day is considered 
one of the greatest feats of bridge engineering in 



164 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

the world. He sunk the great piers down to a bed 
rock under the Mississippi river, one of them ex- 
tending one hundred and thirty feet below high 
water mark, sixty feet of which was down through 
the sand. The great bridge was completed in seven 
years and Eads, unaffected by the glory showered 
upon him, was ready for another undertaking. All 
this while he had been thinking about the choked 
mouth of the Mississippi river and he had seen that 
in obedience to the law of deposit and the law of 
river current, the obstructed channel could be opened 
and make this river what it should be as a highway 
of water travel. He worked out the schemes for the 
jetties and presented them to Congress, showing the 
feasibility of his plan and proposing to attack the 
deeper current; but Congress agreed with him to 
place the first jetty in the shallower current, which 
meant a great deal more labor for the engineer and, 
to his mind, a far less effective result. By the sim- 
ple process of placing willow mattresses in the jetty, 
and by working with patience, he proved to the 
world the sanity and value of his undertaking when 
the first great ship sailed through. In later years 
Congress had a second jetty made in the deeper cur- 
rent in obedience to the original plan of Eads. So 
thorough was he in this undertaking that he exam- 
ined by way of preparation the mouth of every river 
in the United States from the coast of Florida to 
that of California. He also examined the mouth 



SCIENCE AND INVENTION 165 

of the Danube, and was called to England to exam- 
ine the Mersey, for which the Parliament of Eng- 
land gave him thirty-five thousand pounds; and 
later England gave him the Albert medal which is 
the only one ever given to a native born American. 
The Canadian government called him to Canada to 
consult with the master engineers of that country, 
an honor which had never before been conferred 
upon an American. 

But this is not all of his great story. After the 
finishing of the jetties and a retirement of four 
years, while De Lesseps was appearing before Con- 
gress with a plan for the Panama canal, Eads ap- 
peared there also and proposed his plan for a ship 
railway across Mexico at Tehuantepec connecting 
the Atlantic and the Pacific. This he showed would 
be cheaper, fraught with less danger and far more 
effective than the proposed Panama scheme. The 
plans for this great undertaking are still referred to 
in the schools of technology. It specified that the 
road should consist of many rails and extend into 
the water on a trestle mounted by a great frame or 
cradle in which the ships could be launched and 
hastily drawn by a giant engine to the opposite coast 
over a distance of about a hundred miles. He 
brought to this, as to his other undertakings, great 
knowledge ; and in preparation for it he had studied 
the Suez as well as the Panama canal and felt him- 
self sure in what he proposed. Ill health came on 



166 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

before this scheme was finished. He said, "I can 
not die until this is done, I must finish my work;" 
but death overtook him in the year 1887. He 
passed away having done his work in the spirit of 
generosity, patriotism, devotion, and self-abnega- 
tion. His personal qualities were of the highest 
kind; he was courteous and manly, of wonderfully 
persuasive tongue, devoted to his family, and a cit- 
izen of the highest rank. Though self-educated, he 
was a master of English, and the contributions made 
by him to scientific journals and reviews are num- 
berless. 

Eads was also one of the greatest of dreamers in 
the sense that the real dreamer sees the future so 
vividly and so much farther than other men that it 
becomes present to him and regulates his conduct 
and his plans in the present moment. The great 
dreamers of the world have been the great helpers 
of men. They are the men of vision, just as Whit- 
man says, "Ah, Genoese, thy dream, thy dream! 
Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave the world 
verifies thy dream." 

The name Indiana now appears thousands of 
times in print because James B. Eads was born on 
her soil to carry forth to other places the great torch 
of the engineer, and to reach phenomenal success, 
based upon the laws of intelligence, persistence and 
obedience to scientific laws. 



CHAPTER VI 

Torch Bearers in Kindness 

INDIANA has never been without the element of 
kindness and self- forget fulness. Stories might 
be multiplied to show this. We think of how the 
neighbors helped one another in the making of their 
homes and the building up of the community — they 
rolled logs together, made sugar, harvested, spun 
and gave of their labor in the spirit of kindness, 
free of charge. When sickness or death came they 
nursed at the bedside and performed the last kindly 
acts for the dead. Many instances are given where 
hostile Indians have been softened and made 
friendly by the kindness of the white man. While 
the following sketches portray all the elements men- 
tioned above, they have in addition a public spirit 
and a magnanimity on the part of the receivers of 
the kindness that is unparalleled. 

The second instance under this chapter shows an 
example of a private nobleman, and there are doubt- 
less many others in our state, but it is well to men- 
tion names and relate deeds that stand out like the 
witness pillar in excavations of ancient times, to 
show how deep the treasures have been buried. 

Richard Owen and George Merritt practiced their 
kindness as a matter of fact along with their daily 

167 



168 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

duties without ostentation; and of George Merritt 
it may be said he did "good by stealth and was found 
out by accident." 

RICHARD OWEN 

The Man Whose Torch of Kindness Made 
Friends of His Enemies 

THANKS 

Brothers in gray, we thank you; 

Yon have left old scars behind, 
For one whose larger vision 

Saw the need of being kind. 

Brothers, you had your heroes, 
And the Blue had heroes, too; 

But one man's heart was big enough 
To hold both us and you. 

Deep in that bitter darkness 

A small soul could not know 
A man could be so much a friend, 

He could not be a foe. 

Friends, our birth of freedom 

Left ugly wounds to bind, 
But one great vision triumphs, 

The need of being kind. 

— Frances Morrison. 

On the first floor of the State Capitol, in the south- 
east supporting pillar, near the room of the gov- 



KINDNESS 169 

ernor, a niche is filled with a bust of Col. Richard 
Owen. Under the, bust is the inscription : 

COLONEL RICHARD OWEN 

Commandant 

Camp Morton Prison in 1862 

Tribute by Confederate Prisoners of War 

and Their Friends for His Courtesy and 

Kindness. 

The unveiling of this bust June 9, 1913, was one 
of the most extraordinary occasions in the annals 
of the state of Indiana and in so far as we know 
of any state in the Union. It was not a great occa- 
sion because of the distinguished guests gathered 
there from North and South to witness the cere- 
monies and admire the bust; it was not great be- 
cause of the eloquent speeches made on that day, 
nor because a splendid work of art had been given 
to the state of Indiana. It was a great occasion 
because enemies on different sides in a great civil 
war had come together again as friends; it was 
great because those who had been prisoners of war 
had come back to the scene of their imprisonment 
bearing a noble gift in honor of the commandant, 
Richard Owen, who had been placed over them as 
prisoners, when 4,000 Confederates were sent to 
Camp Morton after the battle of Fort Donelson, 
in 1862. 

The interest in the occasion on that day was in- 



170 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

tensified by the facts that it had been more than 
fifty years since the "high tide at Gettysburg," that 
all traces of the prison camp were gone and happy 
homes covered the ground where the sentinel kept 
watch in 1862; Richard Owen himself had then been 
dead for twenty-three years, and many of the pris- 
oners under him had also passed away. So the 
crowning greatness of the occasion was in the lasting 
appreciation of the kindness of Richard Owen that 
brought back these remaining Camp Morton pris- 
oners and their friends half a century after to bear 
witness to enduring gratitude, which is the rarest 
of the virtues; and to prove that noble service, like 
mercy, enriches both the giver and the receiver, and 
also to show that in Indiana that old term from the 
middle ages, "noblesse oblige," still lives. 

The men under Colonel Owen as prisoners tell 
that he cared for them as a father; that he was 
humane, and his humanity communicated itself to 
them; that he commanded through love so to 
make the people under him feel its power. The 
universal comment of him is that he thought only 
of others and not of himself. An incident show- 
ing the way he was regarded took place at Mum- 
ford, Kentucky, after Colonel Owen went again 
to the front. He and his men were captured. 
The Confederate officer rode up to him and said: 
"Colonel Owen, because of the kindness you showed 
our men imprisoned at Camp Morton you are free 



KINDNESS 171 

to go where you will." He was criticized for his 
leniency toward the prisoners, but it was the leniency 
of law and honor such as Lincoln would have prac- 
ticed, and not that of the war spirit. 

Colonel Owen took a trained mind as well as a 
trained heart to his work in the army. He was edu- 
cated in the best schools of Europe, and belonged to 
an illustrious family. 

When the civil war broke out Richard Owen was 
teaching in Tennessee, but he answered true to the 
call of the Union and came home to join the army. 
When he retired from the army he taught in In- 
diana University. 

Among the little touches that give glimpses of 
his neighborhood and family life is one telling of 
the way the children of New Harmony loved Colonel 
Owen and went to him for help. His family never 
thought of intruding upon his hours sacredly set 
apart for study ; but the children would come to him 
at all times and he would smilingly lay aside his 
work and help them, taking the greatest care to make 
plain the point in hand, and then resume his work 
without mention of the interruption. 

Miss Belle Kinney, the sculptor of the Richard 
Owen bust in the State House, writes : 

"My commission to make the Owen bust was one 
of the most pleasant commissions in every way I 
have ever done, as it was made for my old family 
friend, the late Mr. S. A. Cunningham, who had 



172 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

been a war prisoner under Colonel Owen. My 
friend told me most touchingly of his desire to 
honor Richard Owen as the commandant who had 
shown humanity toward his prisoners. He handed 
me two pictures of Colonel Owen, both taken at 
the age of eighty. As I wished to portray Colonel 
Owen at the height of his career at the war time, 
the pictures were of little value. 

"These facts I had to build upon. To begin with, 
the proportions of the niche were gigantic, and to 
offset this my subject was a slender man. The sea- 
son at Camp Morton was a bitter one. This 
permitted my using a big military cape overcoat. 
Colonel Owen's characteristic attitude was with his 
arms folded. My problem was to build a bust 
which represented the soul of my subject. Owen 
was a Scotchman, who had come to America and 
joined the Federal army, but had known and loved 
southern people ; had treated his southern prisoners 
in a manner humane as a commandant; had later 
resigned from the army, saying military life was not 
suited to his nature. I could find out little until one 
night I picked up the autobiography of Robert Dale 
Owen, a dull-looking little volume with yellowed 
pages, but vitally interesting and delightful in every 
line. It gave the entire history of the Owen family. 
They were wonderful scholars and teachers, people 
of highest culture and achievement, of vast wealth 
— and Socialists — and it was interesting to note that 



KINDNESS 173 

the boy, Richard Owen, was a great favorite of the 
father of the present Czar of Russia, so much so 
that the Czar wished to adopt him and rear him as 
a prince in the court of Russia. 

"The book gave me the keynote of Owen and his 
family. They had given of thought, power and 
wealth for humanity. Every influence and act of 
Owen's life had been democratic and humanitarian. 
My problem was solved. His ideal of one great 
union of democracy had forced him to join the army. 
His humanitarianism had made him kind and just 
to his prisoners. This same dominant factor in his 
life made militarism obnoxious to him. I have con- 
ceived Owen as he might have looked on some bit- 
ter morning as he entered the camp and gazed at his 
poor wounded, half-starved prisoners, who were 
men of the highest civilization fighting and being 
fought by men of their own culture, blood and civ- 
ilization, and pondered if the end justified hatred, 
bloodshed and suffering. 

"It was a great pleasure, after making this bust, 
to hear later from Colonel Owen's son that the bust 
was more like his father than any picture ever made 
of him and that it represented his father as he knew 
him in character — that it was his father ! 

"I can not finish my letter to you without recall- 
ing the words and face of my old friend, Mr. Cun- 
ningham, as he stood in the office of your great- 
hearted Governor Ralston. He was thanking him 



174 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

for the interest he took in making the unveiling a 
successful tribute to your splendid Indianian, Colonel 
Owen. Tears were streaming down his face as he 
said: "Governor Ralston, to tell you how impor- 
tant I feel that this honor should be paid to Richard 
Owen, I will tell you that I am a poor man, and the 
grave of the son whom I worship has not yet a 
marker; but I can not die without the South's pay- 
ing this honor. I shall feel content now.' He died 
not many months later. 

"But aside from my ideal work, I find great hap- 
piness in being an instrument in paying honor to 
the great, brave, romantic, chivalrous and splendid 
characters of our great Americans of history. Amer- 
ica, with her extensive country to decorate and vast 
wealth, offers tremendous opportunity for great 
sculpture." 

The memorial booklet published by the givers of 
the bust is full of meaning. There were nearly four 
hundred subscriptions to the fund, and with one or 
two exceptions the sums were small, showing the 
devotion of the people who made the gift. 

The presentation speech was made by Gen. Ben- 
net H. Young, commander in chief of the United 
Confederate Veterans. He said of Colonel Owen: 

"He rose higher than the passions and prejudices 
of the hour in which he lived and acted. He was 
impelled by the highest, greatest, noblest instincts 
of philanthropy in his treatment of others who had 



KINDNESS 175 

by the misfortunes of war been placed in his charge. 
He was so patriotic that early during the war he 
offered his life to his country's call, and over and 
above this superb patriotism there was the gentle 
impulse for his fellow men in his great soul." 



GEORGE MERRITT 
Torch Bearer in Altruism 

The Civil war was over. The famous telegram 
from Grant, "The enemy are our Countrymen 
again," had been received at Washington. The 
boys in blue were coming home, some gaily, some 
disabled; but many, looked for, never came. In 
the early summer following that awful 14th of 
April of the year 1865 Oliver P. Morton, the great 
war governor of Indiana, patriotic then as he had 
been in the early days of the great conflict, called 
a meeting of the citizens. This time it was to de- 
vise means to care for the soldiers who had been 
disabled and could no longer care for themselves. 
Among the fifty citizens who responded to this call 
was George Merritt, torch bearer in altruism. Mr. 
Merritt had been in the service of the Sanitary Com- 
mission in the Civil war, and came to this meeting 
with knowledge and experience as to the needs of 
the situation. After Governor Morton had un- 
folded his plan for founding an institution for tak- 



176 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

ing care of the soldiers by private donation, as there 
then were no available funds, Mr. Merritt stood. 
He told the members present at the meeting that he 
came to them with numbers of unfulfilled promises 
made to dying soldiers whose only care seemed to be 
for their families, and especially their little children. 
He said he felt a deep responsibility in making good 
these promises to the dead. He said to the governor, 
"If you will permit, I myself will be responsible for 
five thousand dollars toward the maintenance of a 
children's home." Time proved that he made good 
this promise to the payment of the last dollar. 

The governor and many of those present thought 
that since funds were so scarce the first undertaking 
caring for the disabled soldiers would be crippled by 
trying to forward another project. This decision 
left Mr. Merritt free to carry out his plans in his 
own way. He decided to have a home instead of an 
institution. In order to carry out this plan, Mr. 
Merritt felt that a woman of the highest type of 
character should be secured. Fortune favored him 
in this, and Miss Susan Fussell, a Philadelphia 
Quaker, was found to fill the office of mother and 
homemaker to this little family. Miss Fussell also 
served in the Sanitary Commission of the Civil war 
as nurse, and no one knew better than she what it 
required to take the responsibility of the place of- 
fered her, but she was very glad to assume it. 
Rooms were at once fitted up by Mr. Merritt in 



KINDNESS 177 

the Military Hospital at Indianapolis in the same 
building now occupied by the City Hospital. 

It was agreed that the first family formed under 
this plan should consist of ten orphans of soldiers. 
The home was well on the way by the last of No- 
vember and continued in the same quarters until 
the next spring, when they went to Knightstown 
Springs. 

The success of this experiment turned out far be- 
yond any dreams that either had in the beginning, 
and the children that grew up in this family kept 
track of each other as if they had been blood rela- 
tions. The institution was finally made a corporate 
part of the soldiers' home. 

Mr. Merritt's work for children did not cease with 
the little family of orphans that he supported after 
the Civil war. Long before the days of kinder- 
gartens he established a public playground in Mili- 
tary Park where he hired a trained teacher to take 
charge of the children. He is said to be the unrec- 
ognized founder of the playground movement in 
Indianapolis. 

Mr. Merritt was for many years a member of the 
Indianapolis School Board, and is responsible for 
one unique feature in the administration of In- 
dianapolis Public Schools in conserving the fund 
arising from the bequest of Thomas Gregg. This 
man was a New England school teacher. He came 
to Indianapolis and taught for a number of years, 



178 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

then went away. But when he died he left to the 
Indianapolis Schools a bequest of twelve thousand, 
eight hundred fifty dollars. To-day the Gregg Fund 
has become known throughout the middle West, and 
this is because it was so wisely handled by George 
Merritt, who proposed, when it was received, to take 
charge of it and husband it in such a way that it 
would revert a benefit on the schools without making 
it necessary to touch the principal. The income from 
this fund, now amounting to over one thousand dol- 
lars a year, is used to educate teachers, who are al- 
lowed a leave of absence for the purpose. Several 
teachers have gone to Germany, and many have been 
sent to the leading universities of the United States 
as beneficiaries of the Gregg Fund — thus bringing 
back to the Indianapolis schools broader ideas, better 
methods and greater efficiency. 

Those who know the inside workings of the 
Gregg Fund say that no more is due to the fund 
originally given than is due to the guardianship of 
that fund by George Merritt until it became a source 
of income, and the benefice deserves the name of 
Merritt Fund as much as it does Gregg Fund. 

George Merritt was one of the most democratic of 
men, and the colored people found in him a fast 
friend. While he was a member of the school board, 
not a great while after the Civil war, when numbers 
of colored people looked upon Indianapolis as a place 
of opportunity, Mr. Merritt, at the request of the 



KINDNESS 179 

colored citizens, was instrumental in granting their 
petition for separate schools. He saw the justice 
in their plea for provision of teachers of their own 
race, who could better understand them and who 
could thereby educate themselves into lives of 
greater usefulness. This system of separate schools, 
founded by George Merritt, is in existence to-day. 

The introduction to this chapter spoke of Mr. 
Merritt as one who did good by stealth and was 
found out by accident. This is clearly illustrated in 
the following story : 

Aunty De Hodey at this time was a washer- 
woman, but she had been one of the fine black 
mammies of a splendid Virginia family, and she 
had brought to Indiana with her the manners that 
are so often found in the South. She knew as if by 
instinct that George Merritt was a man of altruistic 
principles and all that goes with it. This in the 
terms of her childish mind was expressed in the 
phrases, "He's a mighty good man, Mr. Merritt is. 
He's awful good-hearted. He makes me think of 
my mas'er in Ole Virginny." 

Mr. Merritt was not Aunty De Hodey's only pa- 
tron, and that is why she had so many opportunities 
to make known the nobleness of this man. Once 
Aunty came in to Mrs. Jones's in high spirits, say- 
ing, "You heard me speak of Mr. Merritt all these 
years. I ain't said half enough. What you think 
he gone done ? He gone deeded my little house and 



180 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

lot to me all for my very own, cause my boy George 
is twenty-one years old and Mr. Merritt says George 
must pay the taxes now cause he's been payin' 'em 
all this time while George has been a growin' up 
and Mr. Merritt never bothered me once about them 
taxes, an' I guess George'll do that cause I'se al- 
ways sayin' to him, 'George, you must try to be a 
good man like Mr. Merritt, an' den I'll die happy.' " 

Mrs. Merritt was in full accord with the altruis- 
tic spirit of her husband, and like him, did many 
things for many people without ostentation. Among 
the larger things she did was the founding of a 
home for aged colored women, where her benefice 
is now increasingly enjoyed. 

Mr. Merritt's altruism permeated his entire life. 
The examples herein given were only expressions 
of his good feeling and came to the surface as he 
went about his business, which was for many years 
the operation of a woolen mill. The products of 
this mill had a reputation for their genuineness. A 
man in Ohio once wrote to Mr. Merritt asking if 
he did not manufacture some cheaper goods where 
the wool and the cotton were mixed, thus making a 
lighter and less expensive fabric. Mr. Merritt an- 
swered that he had no such goods, that all the prod- 
ucts from his mill were genuine in obedience to the 
name that he had chosen, "Woolen Mills." 

Until his removal to California, every child in 
the vicinity of the George Merritt School, named 



KINDNESS 181 

for him, knew his familiar figure, exchanged cor- 
dial greetings with him and looked up to him with 
the respect due to a patron saint. 

His face was always beautiful and benign and 
illuminated by a light that never was on "land or 
sea." His white hair reached to the top of his cape 
collar, as he usually wore a cape in winter. 

In manner he was gentle, always inspiring con- 
fidence in those he met. He was sympathetic to a 
degree. 

Mr. Merritt came to Indianapolis from Ohio and 
to Ohio from New York. He belongs in a class 
with the man who helped the Greeks against the 
Persians, and when victory was won by the Greeks, 
they hunted everywhere for the one who had done 
so much to win the day, but he could not be found. 
They had to be content with a word from the Oracle 
which said, "No name at all. The great deed ne'er 
grows small." 



CHAPTER VII 

Torch Bearers in Civil and Social Progress 

THE activities mentioned in this group furnish 
an example of the growth of an idea. A 
thought entering one mind communicates the con- 
tagion of its enthusiasm to other minds, then fol- 
lows co-operative effort, and organization, which 
in turn grow into nation-wide and world-wide move- 
ments. 

It is worthy of note that the people of Indiana 
can look back over a hundred years to the civic 
service rendered by General John Tipton; that they 
can look back over half a century to the work in 
prison reform headed by Timothy Nicholson, of 
Richmond; that the leader of one branch of the 
Red Cross movement of the United States was born 
and reared on Indiana soil; that advance laws for 
better housing have been worked out by one of our 
Indiana women, living at Evansville ; that the na- 
tional pure food movement originated with the dis- 
tinguished physician and chemist, Dr. Harvey W. 
Wiley of our state. 

Two men who are real Torch Bearers in Civic 
Service and Social Reform are Levi Coffin of Rich- 
mond, who stands for the part taken by the Quakers 
in the Underground Railroad movement in Indiana, 

182 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 183 

and Dr. John N. Hurty, who has made as valiant 
a fight for health in the state of Indiana as Dr. 
Wiley has made for pure food in the nation. 

The Woman's Literary Club movement of the 
United States, it must also be remembered, had its 
birth in Indiana, and one of the organizers for 
women of the nation is a loyal daughter of Indiana. 

This stirs us with pride, not the pride of arro- 
gance or vanity, but of patriotism which lends itself 
to respect for our state and its people. 



JOHN TIPTON 

Among the First to Bear the Torch of Civic 
Service in Indiana 

No part of the continent was more densely 
wooded than eastern and southern Indiana. It was 
the region of the hard woods. Great trees, some- 
times five or six feet in diameter, lifted their heads 
above a thick undergrowth, where the sun never 
reached the ground in summer. Beyond the Wa- 
bash the great billowy prairies began, stretching 
west to the foothills of the Rockies. Into this al- 
most impenetrable forest came the pioneer. In his 
hands the axe, the tool with which he will clear the 
forest and build his cabin. Over his shoulder the 
rifle, which will furnish him almost all his food 



184 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

from the woods filled with game until his crops are 
planted and gathered. 

Among those entering the territory in the Fall of 
1807 was the Tipton family from East Tennessee, 
a mother and her fatherless children. Fourteen 
years before, Joshua Tipton, a man of distinction 
in his region, had been killed by the Indians. His 
son John, at that time a child of seven, was now a 
young man of twenty-one years. They settled in 
Harrison County, near the Ohio, on a farm of fifty 
acres, and here began that rich civic life which places 
John Tipton among the constructive forces in the 
State of Indiana. He had great native ability but 
his educational advantages had been few. 

More than half the State was still in the posses- 
sion of the Indians, who had not voluntarily re- 
linquished their rights, theirs by inheritance and oc- 
cupation. They looked with alarm at the increasing 
settlements of Palefaces in the south, and the set- 
tlers grew more and more anxious. In 1811 came 
General Harrison's campaign, ending in the battle 
of Tippecanoe. In this expedition John Tipton 
served as a soldier, and he kept a daily diary which 
is to-day the completest account of the campaign 
at the service of the historians. 

He left home an ensign. He returned a cap- 
tain. Later he became a brigadier-general, and 
from that time on was called General Tipton. He 
was master of the art of border warfare. He had 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 185 

been trained to it from a child, but this was only one 
of the things that he could and wanted to do. 

His first civic office was that of justice of the 
peace in Harrison County. Men soon came to know 
that the first word in the title had reality back of it. 
The horse-thieves, counterfeiters and marauders left 
the neighborhood. When the Constitution went 
into effect he was elected sheriff of the county and 
held this office until he was chosen representative to 
the State legislature. Here his constructive ability 
was soon recognized. Whether nominally the head 
of a committee or not, he was its unifying force. 
His intellectual decisions passed at once into deeds. 

In January, 1820, he was one of ten commission- 
ers appointed to select a site for a new capital. Vin- 
cennes had been the territorial capital, Corydon the 
first state capital. Although the Indians were still 
in possession of northwestern Indiana, the settle- 
ments were moving north from the river counties, 
and the feeling that the permanent capital should 
be near the geographical center was strong. In ad- 
dition to being near the center of the State, the new 
capital must be on a river, for the waterways were 
the highways in the early wilderness. The West 
Fork of White river, then called in official records 
"a navigable stream," in a way located the site. 
The commissioners were "to meet and qualify" at 
the Connor settlement south of the present site of 
Noblesville. 



186 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Three sites were proposed, Connor's Prairie, the 
mouth of Fall Creek and the Bluffs near Waverly. 
The commissioners were divided in judgment in re- 
gard to their advantages. Tipton and Governor 
Jennings, who, while he had no vote, was present 
and advised, favored Fall Creek, and on June 7 the 
selection was made, the commissioners then being 
in camp near the mouth of Fall Creek. 

Tipton was re-elected to the next legislature and 
appointed a commissioner on the part of the state 
of Indiana to serve with one commissioner from the 
state of Illinois to locate and fix the boundary line 
between the two States. Their report was confirmed 
by the legislature in the session of 1822-23. 

In March, 1823, General Tipton was appointed 
by President James Monroe, General Agent for the 
Pottawattomie and Miami Indians not yet removed 
from northern Indiana. He at once removed to 
Ft. Wayne, the location of the agency, and from 
this time on his interests were with the northern 
rather than with the southern part of the State. He 
was now a representative of the United States and 
in this office he showed great diplomatic and admin- 
istrative skill. He negotiated treaties with the In- 
dians, purchased their lands, paid them the price, 
and finally in 1838, when they refused to act on 
the terms of the treaty of 1826, at the head of a 
military force, he escorted them out of the State 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 187 

to their new home beyond the Mississippi. It is 
said that he accomplished this with great skill. 

Early Indiana had two great highways crossing 
each other at right angles, the National Road from 
east to west, the Michigan Road from north to south. 
It was Tipton who negotiated with the Indians for 
a strip of land one hundred feet wide through their 
reservation upon which to build a road which ex- 
tended from the Ohio river at Madison to Lake 
Michigan, taking its name from the northern ter- 
minus. 

In 1828, upon the suggestion of General Tipton, 
the Indian agency was removed from Ft. Wayne 
to Logansport. Here he showed a new kind of 
power as organizer of a town, with its educational 
and civic interests. He was particularly interested 
in building school-houses and raising money to pay 
teachers. He was the president of the Eel River 
Seminary. 

When in 1831 a vacancy in the United States Sen- 
ate, caused by the death of Senator Noble, was to be 
filled by vote of the Legislature, General Tipton 
was urged to be a candidate. For some time he re- 
fused. The following letter explains itself and 
shows some of the finest traits of this man's char- 
acter, his modesty, his self-respect, his desire to 
serve. 



188 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

At Home, July 23, 1831. 
"Dear Sir — Your note of yesterday has been re- 
ceived, and in reply I have to inform you that I 
would greatly prefer remaining in the situation I 
now hold, as Indian agent, to any other that could 
be given me. I have many letters on this same sub- 
ject, and am of opinion we should weigh well this 
matter before we act. If, after the election, it is 
found best to use a name, and mine is best (strong- 
est), I will go with my friends for the cause and 
for our country, but believe me, that I am not seek- 
ing office, and will esteem it a sacrifice of peace and 
property to do this. My talent is not of the kind 
that I wish to see in the United States Senate." 

John Tipton. 

He was elected for the short term and re-elected 
for the full term of six years. He favored the 
United States bank in opposition to his party and 
worked for it with all his power. He was at the 
head of all committees on Indian affairs, and here, 
as everywhere, he commanded respect. 

After the northern lands were open for sale he 
bought great tracts and he knew which the best 
lands were. When the State of Indiana was ready 
to accept and care for the Tippecanoe Battle-ground 
he deeded the land to the State. 

He had the qualities which are valuable in all 
times and all places, honesty, intelligence, and the 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 189 

imagination which gives power to work for future 
ends. He was a man among men and can be called 
a Constructive Pioneer. 



TIMOTHY NICHOLSON 

Torch Bearer in Prison Reform in Indiana for 
Over Fifty Years 

One has but to read the story of prison reform in 
Indiana to learn how faithfully and how well Tim- 
othy Nicholson has labored in the service of his fel- 
low men. Timothy Nicholson himself says that the 
chief credit for the high character of our more re- 
cent laws and their efficient administration belongs 
to the three men who successively served as secre- 
tary of the Indiana Board of State Charities — 
Alexander Johnson, Ernest P. Bicknell and Amos 
W. Butler. And each of these three men in turn 
declares that Timothy Nicholson is Indiana's most 
useful public servant. Certain it is that all four 
have immeasurably influenced the state's penal and 
correctional service, and in much that was under- 
taken Timothy Nicholson was the moving spirit. 

Long before the Board of State Charities was 
created by the Legislature of 1889, Timothy Nichol- 
son was working for prison reform. He was a char- 
ter member of a committee of Indiana Yearly Meet- 
ing of Friends, appointed at the suggestion of 



190 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Charles F. Coffin in 1867, "to organize a system for 
the reformation of juvenile offenders and the im- 
provement of prison discipline." Persistently, ag- 
gressively, this committee worked, and among the 
results obtained, which those who know say are due 
largely, and in some cases almost wholly, to the ef- 
forts of the Friends, are to be mentioned the es- 
tablishment of a separate state institution for delin- 
quent boys and another for women and girl offend- 
ers, who previously had been confined with men 
criminals in the State Prison at Jeffersonville ; the 
correction of many abuses in state and county insti- 
tutions, and the establishment of homes for depend- 
ent children, whom the committee found by the hun- 
dreds living in most unfortunate surroundings in 
the county poor asylums. For the passage of the 
Board of State Charities law, credit is due, 
in perhaps equal measure, to Timothy Nichol- 
son and the Rev. Oscar C. McCulloch, and both 
men were appointed charter members of that 
body. Through the activities of the board, the 
crystallization into law of the humane principles 
for which it has stood, and the support of an 
enlightened public opinion, there has come into 
existence a system of public charities and cor- 
rection which is an enduring tribute to the wisdom 
and the courage of its founders. No one will con- 
tradict this who remembers or can read of prison 
conditions in Indiana less than a half-century ago. 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 191 

Those were the days when the state wrought venge- 
ance upon the offender, notwithstanding that noble 
clause in the constitution which declared that the 
penal code should be "founded on the principles of 
reformation rather than of vindictive justice;" 
when the prisons were the scenes of much that was 
vicious and brutal, degrading alike to prisoners and 
their keepers; when mere children in institutions 
were subjected to influences which could but make 
criminals of them. 

Under the laws of the past quarter of a century 
the state penal and correctional institutions have 
been transformed. They are now more like great 
schools in which men and women, boys and girls 
are learning to be good citizens. Read the long list 
of laws — the establishment of the Indiana Reforma- 
tory; the non-partisan management of state institu- 
tions; the regulation of prison punishment; the in- 
stallation of trades teaching; the indeterminate sen- 
tence; adult probation; court, police and jail ma- 
trons; the separation of the Indiana Girls' School 
from the Indiana Woman's Prison; the establish- 
ment of state institutions for the class of offenders 
who heretofore have served their sentences in idle- 
ness in county jails; the better care of dependent, 
neglected and abandoned children; the board of chil- 
dren's guardians; the juvenile court (it was Tim- 
othy Nicholson's suggestion which led Judge George 
W. Stubbs to establish a separate court for children 



192 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

in Indianapolis long before the juvenile court law 
was passed). These are some oi the more impor- 
tant. And it is not too much to say that all oi 
them are part of the movement that was started 
fifty years ago by the committee of which Timothy 
Nicholson was one oi the leaders. 

It is pleasant to be able to add to this sketch a 
bit of autobiography. The following notes are taken 
from a letter written by Timothy Nicholson, in his 
own hand : 

"I was bom in North Carolina in 1828 of re- 
ligious parents, both of them elders in Friends 
Church (Orthodox). I was educated at a Friends 
Academy in the neighborhood in which we lived; 
afterward at a Friends School in Providence, R. I. 
I returned home and took charge as principal of 
the academy in which I was once a scholar, and re- 
mained principal for six years. In 1855, with my 
wife and child, I went to Haver ford College, a 
Friends institution near Philadelphia, as an instruc- 
tor for four years and for two years as its super- 
intendent and treasurer. In 1861 I came to Rich- 
mond and joined a younger brother in a book store." 
(Here follows mention of his connection with the 
Friends Committee on Prison Reform, of which he 
was a member from 1866 to 1909, when at his own 
request it was released; also his membership on the 
Board of State Charities.) "By the work of this 
Board of State Charities," Mr. Nicholson continues, 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 193 

"all the state institutions were rescued from par- 
tisan-political management, and the result was great 
improvement. Now, all our state institutions will 
compare favorably with the best in the United 
States, or in the world. After serving on this board 
for nineteen years (1889-1908) without any pe- 
cuniary compensation, giving an average of forty 
days a year from home, beside a vast amount of cor- 
respondence, in 1908, in my eightieth year, I re- 
signed. But I still keep in active touch with the 
work and attend the annual conferences.* 

"The Indiana Anti-Saloon League was organized 
twenty years ago, and I have been its president all 
this while. And I spent several days around the 
Legislature this winter,t using my influence to se- 
cure state-wide prohibition, a constitutional conven- 
tion and woman suffrage, though I am now in my 
eighty-ninth year." 



♦Mr. Nicholson was president of the State Conference of 
Charities and Correction in 1896 and of the National Confer- 
ence in 1902. 

f 1917. 



194 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 



ERNEST P. BICKNELL 

Who Now Bears the Torch of the American Red 
Cross in the Wake of Disaster and Distress. 

There is a beautiful white marble building in the 
city of Washington, in which one may find a tablet 
bearing these words : 

"A memorial built by the Government of 
the United States and patriotic citizens, to 
the Women of the North and the Women of 
the South, held in loving memory by a now 
united country. That their labors to miti- 
gate the suffering of the sick and wounded in 
war may be forever perpetuated, this Memo- 
rial is dedicated to the service of the Amer- 
ican Red Cross." 

In the same spirit in which this splendid memorial 
was created and then dedicated to the service of the 
Red Cross, the Red Cross itself is dedicated to the 
service of humanity. In time of war, it is at the 
front on errands of mercy to suffering soldiers. 
When some overwhelming disaster leaves a com- 
munity stunned and prostrate, the Red Cross comes 
to restore hope and courage. And always its pre- 
ventive work goes on — its department for instruc- 
tion in first aid, its nursing bureaus, and its Christ- 
mas seal, the income from which is helping enor- 
mously the nation's fight against the scourge of 
tuberculosis. To each of its tasks it brings knowl- 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 195 

edge and skill of the highest rank, and tireless de- 
votion. 

In the language of one of its officers, the Red 
Cross is "the great volunteer aid department of our 
country, to administer the generosity of the people 
in time of national or international need. Its ac- 
counts are required by law to be audited by the War 
Department; it must make an official annual report 
to Congress; if unworthy of its high calling it may 
be dissolved by that body, which created it; it has 
government supervision without government con- 
trol; and under an international treaty it has re- 
ceived international recognition." 

The history of the society dates back to 1864, 
when a treaty was entered into at Geneva, Switz- 
erland, by which the principal nations of the world 
pledged themselves to aid the wounded in time of 
war, without distinction of nationality. In honor of 
the country where this memorable meeting occurred, 
the reverse of the Swiss flag, which is a white 
cross in a red field, became the emblem of the new 
organization — a red cross in a white field, and the 
organization took its name from its own flag. From 
time to time national societies came into being. The 
American Red Cross was first organized in 1881 as 
a private society, but this was dissolved shortly be- 
fore the present corporation was created by act of 
Congress in 1905. In this land of peace, it has 
directed its activities to disaster relief more gen- 



196 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

erally than is the case with the Red Cross of any 
other nation. During its first year, 1906, it partici- 
pated in relief made necessary by a famine in Japan, 
an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, a typhoon in the Phil- 
ippines, an earthquake in Chile, and in our own 
land, a violent storm on the coast of the Gulf States 
and the terrible earthquake and fire which devastated 
the city of San Francisco. This illustrates the va- 
riety of disasters which make demand upon the Red 
Cross, both in finances and in personnel. It must 
be ready for any and every emergency. 

In 1916 a complete reorganization of the work 
of the Red Cross was effected, by which its various 
activities are now classed under three divisions, one 
having to do with business matters, one with mili- 
tary relief, one with civilian relief. Under "military 
relief" comes the department of first aid, also all 
activities for the relief of the sick and wounded in 
time of war. Under "civilian relief" are relief in 
disasters, the town and country nursing service, the 
Christmas seal, the membership bureau, and the en- 
tire network of state and local branches through 
which the office at Washington keeps in touch with 
every community in the whole broad land. Of the 
last-named division Ernest P. Bicknell, a Hoosier 
born and bred, is the director-general. 

Mr. Bicknell first became connected with the Red 
Cross at the time of the San Francisco earthquake 
and fire in 1906. He was then superintendent of 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 197 

the Chicago Bureau of Charities. Immediately after 
the catastrophe, a great committee in that city began 
the raising of a relief fund, and it appointed Mr. 
Bicknell its representative in the distribution of the 
money. Shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Edward 
T. Devine, who went to San Francisco as the special 
representative of the Red Cross, Mr. Bicknell 
worked for the relief of that stricken city. When, 
later, Doctor Devine returned to his duties as sec- 
retary of the New York Charity Organization So- 
ciety, Mr. Bicknell became Red Cross agent, and his 
intended stay of two weeks lengthened out into six 
months. The next spring he went to England to 
attend the International Red Cross Conference, as 
a delegate from the United States Government. 
These experiences gave him an insight into the won- 
derful possibilities of the Red Cross in the field of 
emergency relief. Suggestions which he made to 
the society for the development of this work were 
adopted and he himself, in 1908, was placed in 
charge. 

Ernest P. Bicknell was born near Vincennes in 
1862 and is a graduate of Indiana University. He 
left Indiana to become superintendent of the Chi- 
cago Bureau of Charities. The wide range of his 
interest in matters of social welfare is indicated by a 
long list of committees and organizations on which 
he served in Illinois, while the presidency of the Na- 
tional Conference is the highest honor which social 



198 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

workers of the United States can bestow upon one 
of their number. 

In his present position it is part of Mr. BicknelFs 
duty, in time of some great calamity, to act in an 
advisory capacity to local relief bodies, or if desir- 
able, to take charge of relief operations. Ordinarily 
his work is confined to the United States, but at the 
time of the Italian earthquake, when the homes of 
500,000 persons were destroyed and near 100,000 
persons perished, the Red Cross sent him to Sicily 
and Calabria, to study the relief methods and to co- 
operate with the agencies already on the ground. A 
part of the assistance rendered there by the Amer- 
ican committee took the form of little frame houses, 
designed as temporary shelters for the homeless. 
There were between two thousand and three thou- 
sand of them. A street in one of these "American 
Villages," as they were called, is a silent testimony 
to the director of the American Red Cross. It 
bears the name "Via Bicknell." 

In our own land Mr. Bicknell has personally di- 
rected relief occasioned by a long list of calamities — 
tornadoes, forest fires, mine disasters, floods. Per- 
haps the most disastrous of these, certainly the most 
widespread, was the flood in the Ohio River valley 
in 1913, when 65,000 families were driven from 
their homes and more than 300,000 persons were 
temporarily compelled to depend upon relief supplies 
for food. A stupendous task of rehabilitation con- 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 199 

fronted the relief workers. Mr. Bicknell devoted 
five months to it before it was possible to leave the 
several communities to their own resources. 

But all these calamities — all indeed that America 
has witnessed in a hundred years, do not, combined, 
present such a frightful picture of distress as Mr. 
Bicknell has witnessed at different times in the past 
three years in war-torn Europe. He tells about it in 
"The Survey," in the Red Cross Magazine and in 
the proceedings of the National Conference of 
Charities and Correction. Twice he has crossed the 
seas since the war began, not in his official capacity, 
but as a member of special commissions. One of 
these was sent by the United States government to 
assist Americans to return from the war zone. The 
other went under direction of the Rockefeller Foun- 
dation, to help non-combatant sufferers in the coun- 
tries devastated by this most terrible of wars. 

At the present time Mr. Bicknell is busy in Wash- 
ington City helping to organize the forces all over 
the country, to meet any emergencies that may arise 
from the bursting of the war cloud that now hangs 
over us. 



200 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

MRS. ALBION FELLOWS BACON 
Torch Bearer in Housing Reform 

Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon has so beautifully 
given the inception of her ideas in housing reform, 
that it is only necessary to mention a few of the 
activities with which she has been engaged from 
early girlhood. As we read over the pages of the 
"Who's Who Book in Indiana," we despair of nam- 
ing the catalogue of what she has done. She was 
born April 8, 1865, in Evansville, Indiana ; educated 
at the Evansville High School. Either in the posi- 
tion of organizer, leader or member, she had vital 
connection with the following organizations : The 
Men's Circle of Friendly Visitors, the Flower Mis- 
sion, Anti-Tuberculosis League, Monday Night 
Club, Working Girls' Association, all of Evansville; 
the Indiana Housing Association, of which she was 
secretary; the National Housing Association, of 
which she was a director ; the District Nurse Circle, 
the Civic Improvement Society, the State Federation 
of Women's Clubs, and is a lecturer and writer on 
tenement reform. All of these show the many an- 
gles of approach which this frail woman has looked 
upon and practiced in connection with her beloved 
theme of social amelioration through housing re- 
form. 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 201 

The following article, written by Mrs. Bacon, is 
full of the pulse-beats of a sympathetic soul. 

"What led you into Housing Reform?" I am 
often asked. Every force that shaped my life, I 
might answer, from those 

"Shadowy years too distant to remember, 
Where childhood merges backward into night." 

My first dim memory is of Arcadian beauty that lay 
all about me. Those wide free fields made the con- 
gested ugly city slums unbearable. 

My mother's influence was a strong force. Her 
spotless purity of life and language extended to her 
material surroundings. She was one of the earliest 
sanitarians. The whitest garments, the most whole- 
some food, abundance of sunshine, air and water, 
she would have. Her fine public spirit, her human- 
itarianism and religious devotion, impressed us 
deeply, even as children, with our responsibility to 
our community and to the poor. 

Directly, it was the divine command, "Follow 
Me," that sent me into the homes of the poor. See- 
ing their misery and wretched condition, I was 
never able to turn away from it, but plunged into 
one phase of social service after another, in an ef- 
fort to better their conditions. Still, whatever I 
undertook, the conclusion was forced upon me that 
only temporary relief could be given, so long as the 



202 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

people lived as they did. Why should we nurse the 
sick, and allow the unsanitary conditions that breed 
disease? Why engage in anti-tuberculosis work 
when we permitted "tuberculosis factories" to 
stand? Why work for child welfare and social pur- 
ity, when children were being reared in over- 
crowded dens that were schools of vice? Why 
work for community health, when we ignored cen- 
ters of epidemics? Why fight for public morals, 
when the stream was poisoned at a thousand 
sources? Why dream of a higher citizenship when, 
all over the state, voters were growing up in 
"homes" that encouraged lawlessness and indecency, 
that accustomed them to low standards and fur- 
nished no ideals? 

Year after year it was borne in upon me more ir- 
resistibly that the homes of the people mold the life 
of the people. That the homes are more important 
to public health than are any public places or condi- 
tions. That the homes affect life and character as 
do neither church nor school. 

As I investigated conditions among the poor and 
the working people, first in my own city, and then 
throughout the entire state, the homes of Indiana 
came to be the burden of my heart. I took upon me, 
in 1908, what has become my life work, of wiping 
out the slums of Indiana, and of planting in their 
places homes worthy of the name. 

It is a long, hard task, one I have faced with no 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 203 

illusions. It cannot all be done in one lifetime, yet 
I am glad to devote my life to that part which it is 
given me to accomplish, feeling sure that others will 
be raised up to succeed the noble men and women 
who are working with me. 

The result of my investigations showed me that 
much of the sickness and misery of the poor, much, 
indeed, of the preventable disease of the state, was 
due to unsanitary living conditions. Dark, damp, 
foul, over-crowded rooms, with little or no light and 
air, no water, no drainage, no sewerage, no provi- 
sion for ashes, garbage and other waste, prevailed 
in all of our cities and towns. It was a shock 
to find hundreds of families sleeping in windowless 
rooms. It was amazing to know that a large per- 
centage of families — families of from three to ten 
persons — lived, ate, slept, cooked, washed, in only 
one room ! We found unspeakable degradation, 
due to congestion and promiscuity, where vice was 
inevitable. I found that "housing reform" was the 
first step that must be taken — the requiring of 
safety and decency in dwellings, by law, since slum 
owners defied us to get changes without a law. 

The story of housing legislation in Indiana is a 
long one, dealing with five sessions of the legisla- 
ture, from 1909 to 1917. As I have given the story 
of three sessions in my story, Beauty for Ashes, 
with the names of those who took a prominent part, 
this limited space must be used for other facts. Suf- 



204 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

rice it to say, we have passed three laws, in these five 
sessions. 

The bill submitted to the legislature of 1909 was 
for a tenement law to apply to all the cities and 
towns in Indiana. Much as we desired a law to 
regulate all dwellings, it was considered inexpedient 
to attempt it, so the "multiple dwelling," in which 
two or more families lived, was dealt with. It pro- 
vided that every tenement should have at least one 
window in each room, with enough vacant space on 
the lot to admit sunlight and air to that window. It 
regulated the minimum size of rooms, yards and 
courts; required water, drainage and sewerage 
(where possible) with separate toilets for each fam- 
ily, in new houses — but no bathtubs ! Would we 
could ! Fire hazard was provided against, and 
promiscuity prevented by requiring separate conve- 
niences for families. Lighting of halls was required, 
congestion provided against, and other measures 
taken to prevent vice. 

After a long fight the bill passed — only applying 
to Indianapolis and Evansville ! However, it went 
into strong effect in both cities. 

In 1911 we fought another long, hard fight, win- 
ning a state-wide tenement code — only to lose it, at 
midnight of the last night of the session, by the 
change of one vote! 

In 1913 we won the law, lost in 1911. It is an 
entire code, and applies to the one hundred cities of 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 205 

Indiana — but not to its 373 towns. We were not 
able to get them included. 

In 1915 I was obliged again to spend most of the 
session at the capitol fighting efforts to repeal or in- 
jure the tenement law. At the same time we made 
an effort to get a brief supplemental law, giving the 
state control of all dangerous and uninhabitable 
dwellings, in the entire state. The senate passed it 
with only two votes against it, the house killed it by 
only two votes. This year we have won that same 
law, by a unanimous vote in both houses. 

The bill is of far-reaching effect, and if it regu- 
lated the construction of dwellings hereafter 
erected, it would be next to the last word in housing 
legislation. 

The last word will be spoken when public senti- 
ment demands that every building shall conform to 
such regulations as are necessary for the safety and 
welfare of the public. 

The last word spoken by law is the beginning of 
the sentence for housing betterment. Upon the 
foundation of decency and safety — which is all that 
law can require — the homes of Indiana can be built, 
with all those desirable attributes that people can be 
educated to give. Education, indeed, there must be, 
so that the needs of the people may be known. We 
must know the exact conditions of our cities, our 
towns, our rural communities. We must realize 
what these conditions mean to the people in 



206 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

the home, what the home means to the com- 
munity. Home economics must be widely studied. 
Architects and sanitarians must take their part in 
educating the people. We must know the value of 
beauty of form, line and color, of space and outlook, 
of cheerfulness and agreeableness, and their effect 
upon morals and efficiency, as well as knowing the 
value of convenience. Then, we must apply the 
most rigid common sense and business principles to 
the work of finding out how we can house our peo- 
ple in structures that are durable, sanitary, safe, 
convenient, comfortable and attractive, at a cost 
that can be afforded by the builder, owner and 
renter. When this is brought home to Indiana, as it 
has already been accomplished elsewhere — we must 
find the men who are willing to build such houses. 
Nor will our task then be finished. The care and 
management of the homes for the poorer classes 
will always need our interest. ''Teaching the ten- 
ant" must be done in all of our communities, until 
the grievances of rental owners and the anarchistic 
tendencies of tenants find adjustment and removal. 
For some years to come the enforcement of our 
existing housing laws will be a matter of first inter- 
est. Already men in some of our cities are taking 
up the question of housing the workmen, who have 
been called to our cities in such large numbers that a 
"house famine" results. It is with deep joy that I 
hear, in the far distance, the busy hammers at work 
upon model homes for our people. The only sound 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 207 

that approaches it is the fall of decaying timbers 
when our slums are razed. 

There is an accompaniment in my heart of the 
wailing of sick babies, and the groans of suffering 
women, that I trust will some day be drowned en- 
tirely by the shouts and laughter of happy children, 
on the recreation fields of a garden city "in our own 
Indiana." 

One comes to understand, at least in our humble, 
mortal way, how the Master was moved to weep 
over his beloved city. Who can go through the 
crowded slums of our cities, and see their conges- 
tion growing year by year, without a deep, dumb 
ache for all the misery that we have seen? And 
who can work for one's state without a growing 
love for it, and a growing pride in its name, its in- 
stitutions, its people — its very soil? Long ago I 
put this consuming feeling into words, which have 
been published elsewhere, but I may quote here : 

THE TORCH 

Make me to be a torch for feet that grope 
Down Truth's dim trail ; to bear for wistful eyes 
Comfort of light ; to bid great beacons blaze, 
And kindle altar fires of sacrifice. 

Let me set souls aflame with quenchless zeal 
For great endeavor, causes true and high. 
So would I live to quicken and inspire, 
So would I, thus consumed, burn out and die. 

Albion Fellows Bacon. 

Permission of L. C. Page & Co. 



208 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

DR. HARVEY W. WILEY 
Torch Bearer in Pure Food Reform 

Dr. Harvey W. Wiley is not only an expert chem- 
ist, but a figure of national renown. He affords an 
example of a man who became so deeply interested 
in his life work that it turned him into a reformer, 
not for the saving of men's souls alone, but for the 
preservation of their bodies. Dr. Wiley was born 
in Kent, Indiana, in 1844. He is an alumnus of 
Hanover, and prepared himself for his work at 
Harvard and in Europe. Before starting the pure 
food movement, he had given some of the best years 
of his life to teaching in Indiana high schools and 
colleges. 

Dr. Wiley's interest in the pure food movement 
was not sporadic, but of natural, steady growth, 
and led him to a work that he did not foresee in the 
beginning, but which he could not abandon until he 
had followed out the inevitable conclusions which 
carried science from the laboratory into a nation- 
wide humanitarian movement. 

Except for his own good will in telling his story, 
the readers of this book would have lost much that 
is above price in the history of the social and civic 
progress of Indiana. Here follows Dr. Wiley's 
own account of his work in the pure food move- 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 209 

ment. He says : 'The story of how I came into the 
pure food work is as follows : 

"From early boyhood I have always been inter- 
ested in matters relating to nutrition and health. 
While a sophomore in Hanover College, in 1865, I 
read an essay on 'The Importance of Health.' In 
those early days I, of course, knew very few of the 
fundamentals of the necessity of good food but I 
did realize that efficiency in any kind of an under- 
taking, whether in the class-room or in the cornfield, 
depends on health. During my medical studies I 
realized how little was known of the science of nu- 
trition. Eminent physicians prescribing for the 
same kind of a case would give diametrically oppo- 
site opinions respecting the food supply and its im- 
portance. It was not until 1878, however, while I 
was a student in the University of Berlin, that I 
really undertook a systematic study of foods in their 
relation to health. 

"Through the courtesy of the Imperial Health of- 
ficer of Berlin, I was admitted into the public health 
laboratory, and did work therein on foods and food 
analysis. I also took a very elaborate course of lec- 
tures from Professor Eichhorn on the food of plants, 
he at that time being professor of plant physiology. 
On my return to Lafayette, Indiana, in 1879, I 
made arrangements to continue these studies and I 
began by studying the sugar, molasses and syrup 
supply of the state. In 1880 I interested the Indi- 



210 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

ana State Board of Health, through Dr. Vinnedge, 
of Lafayette, who was a member of the board at 
that time, in these studies. They made me a grant 
of fifty dollars for expenses in connection with these 
studies in the adulteration of sugars and syrups in 
the state. I made quite an elaborate study with the 
aid of this small fund, and made a report to the 
State Board of Health on the subject, which was 
published in 1881. This publication, though not of 
very large extent, is therefore an epoch in my career 
in connection with the food supply of the country. 

'These studies in sugars and syrups, together with 
my connection with the agricultural college of the 
state, attracted the attention of Dr. George B. Lor- 
ing, who was commissioner of agriculture at Wash- 
ington. In January, 1883, I was invited by him to 
attend a meeting of agricultural chemists and di- 
rectors of experiment stations in Washington and 
to deliver an address on the relations of science to 
agriculture. In about a month after my return 
from Washington I received a letter from Dr. Lor- 
ing offering me the position of chief chemist in the 
Department of Agriculture. I accepted this posi- 
tion and was sworn in on the ninth of April, 1883. 
Dr. Loring granted me leave of absence until the 
end of the college year at Purdue. I finished the 
year and resigned from Purdue on Commencement 
Day, 1883. 

"Immediately on taking up my residence in 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 211 

Washington, D. C, I organized the campaign in the 
study of food adulteration, and the first bulletin on 
that subject was published in 1884. This work was 
continued with increasing vigor and in collaboration 
with similar work which was going on in some of 
the states. An increasing interest was soon mani- 
fested in this subject all over the country. This 
interest led to the introduction into Congress of 
various bills intended to regulate interstate com- 
merce in adulterated and misbranded foods. The 
interests engaged in the adulteration and misbrand- 
ing of foods and drugs were not idle. A vigorous 
campaign was inaugurated to defeat all legislation 
of the kind proposed. These efforts were uniformly 
successful. It was not until the thirtieth of June, 
1906, that a food and drugs law was finally enacted 
by Congress and approved by the President of the 
United States, and what happened subsequent to 
1906 is still modern history. The Congress of the 
United States imposed on the Bureau of Chemistry 
the duty of enforcing the food and drugs act. As 
head of that bureau I proposed to enforce it to the 
letter. I had just finished the experiments in feed- 
ing young men over long periods of time certain 
food preservatives and coloring matters, and the 
results of these studies were such as to indicate that 
all bodies of this kind were harmful. A storm of 
opposition arose against my work on the part of 
persons interested in the use of preservatives and 



212 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

colors. As a result of this protest my further in- 
vestigations were ordered to be stopped. The publi- 
cation of two of the series of investigations was sus- 
pended and has remained suspended ever since. The 
results which I had obtained were ordered to be 
placed before a separate board not recognized by the 
law but created for the express purpose of delaying 
or preventing action against the users of food pre- 
servatives and colors. This board was created by 
President Roosevelt in direct violation of the food 
and drugs act, which provided the machinery for its 
own enforcement. The Remsen Board created by 
President Roosevelt was a different machinery not 
recognized in the law. It, however, prevailed. The 
decisions of the Remsen Board were in all cases ac- 
cepted in opposition to my own. As a result ben- 
zoate of soda, around which the battle raged most 
fiercely, was declared to be a harmless substance and 
that decision still stands. Thus the adulteration of 
food, forbidden by law, was established by execu- 
tive act. The Remsen Board has died but its evil 
works still live. 

"Perhaps the greatest battle in which I was en- 
gaged was with reference to alcoholic beverages. 
The question, 'What is whisky?' became of world- 
wide interest. President Roosevelt, after a long bat- 
tle, decided the whisky question in my favor. Those 
who believed in bad whisky took their case into the 
federal courts and uniformly were defeated. When 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 213 

Taft became President ' he reversed the ruling of 
Roosevelt and re-established rulings which recog- 
nized adulterated whisky as the genuine article, and 
to-day benzoate of soda and impure whisky sail un- 
der the direct approval of the highest officials of the 
United States." 

CONSTANCE FAUNTLEROY RUNCIE 

Torch Bearer in Founding the First Woman's 
Literary Club in the United States 

"Upon my return to New Harmony from Stutt- 
gart, Germany, where I had been studying for five 
years, I heard of a secret society in the school of 
our town. With all the longings for a larger life, 
and filled with the spirit of helpfulness which I had 
breathed in from the traditions of the Owen com- 
munity, I said, 'Let us organize a literary society,' 
and the response resulted in the formation of 'The 
Minerva' in 1859, the first woman's literary club 
regularly organized in the United States. We called 
it The Minerva' because we wished to become wise. 
The membership of this club consisted at first of 
young married women and single ladies. We lis- 
tened to poems, papers, essays, readings and de- 
bates, and one of our members, Mrs. Ella Deitz 
Clymer, afterward became president of the New 
York Sorosis, a club which claimed to be of earlier 
origin than the Minerva." 



214 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Constance Fauntleroy was born in Indianapolis, 
Indiana, in 1836, and died in St. Joseph, Missouri, 
in 1911. She was the grand-daughter of Robert 
Owen and daughter of Jane Dale Owen Fauntleroy. 
She inherited the gifts of her illustrious ancestors 
and was most proficient in music and literature. Dur- 
ing her stay in Stuttgart with her widowed mother, 
brothers and sister, she gave much of her time to the 
study of music. To show how the education started 
by the Owen experiment in 1825 lived on in New 
Harmony, where she spent most of her girlhood, 
Mrs. Runcie told a news reporter that she played 
ball in the field, set type at the bench, looked on at 
the dance before she was old enough to take part; 
and as she grew, took to dancing as naturally as she 
did to walking when a child. She was reared in the 
society of scholars and thinkers, being left free to 
form her own religious opinions; her genial man- 
ner and openness of mind, along with her kindly 
humor endeared her to all friends. After her mar- 
riage to the Rev. James Runcie, she went with her 
husband to live in Madison, and there, as in New 
Harmony, her home became a center for literary 
culture and social uplift. She founded a club soon 
after going to Madison, and its members received 
from it delight and growth. Her name came to be 
revered in Madison as a great leader and to this day 
her benign influence is felt. 

At the end of ten years, Mr. and Mrs. Runcie 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 215 

moved from Madison to St. Joseph, Missouri, 
where a call was extended from an Episcopal 
church. During these years Mrs. Runcie kept her 
pen busy and a volume of lyrical verse, written by 
her, has been published. She also continued her 
music and soon came to be known here, as she had 
been in other places. The Runcie Club, whose presi- 
dent she was in St. Joseph, still exists. 

She often spoke of the spirit that actuated the 
formation of the Minerva and of the Sorosis. The 
New York society grew, she said, out of a very dif- 
ferent spirit from that which actuated the forming 
of the Minerva. When Charles Dickens visited 
America and the tickets were being given out for 
the dinner of journalists in his honor, a newspaper 
writer, Mrs. Croly, applied for a ticket, but was 
refused because only men were to be present. 
Thereupon she immediately formed a club, naming 
it the Sorosis. No doubt existed in the minds of any 
of its members as to its being the mother club of all 
others, until Mrs. Runcie brought to light the in- 
disputable fact that the Minerva Club was several 
years older than the Sorosis. 

Upon the celebration of the one hundredth anni- 
versary of the founding of New Harmony, 1914, a 
surviving member of the Minerva Club, Mrs. 
Fauntleroy, presided. She was then in the glory of 
her years, and gave a beautiful and simple recital 
of the little group that had gathered there over a 



216 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

half a century before in the interests of the larger 
life. While she was speaking, a telegram from 
Chicago, sent by the president of the Federated 
Clubs of the United States, then in session, in greet- 
ing to New Harmony, was read to the audience. 
Many who were present made the connection be- 
tween the small beginning which had just been re- 
cited and the immense conclave assembled in Chi- 
cago, and decided in favor of the early simplicity 
represented by this pioneer of the Minerva Club. 

The candle-light from this little group in New 
Harmony in 1859 lit a torch that in turn lit beacon- 
fires in forty-eight states, which to-day shine from 
shore to shore on a great continent. 



MARY GARRETT HAY 
Torch Bearer as Organizer of Woman's Work 

As organizer in woman's work, Mary Garrett 
Hay embodies in herself all the attributes required 
for such a position and fitly deserves a place in the 
procession among torch bearers. She has a deep in- 
sight into the needs of the situation and of the means 
by which she can accomplish the ends desired. She is 
a splendid judge of character and can, as if by in- 
stinct, see what place a person fits and how to put 
him to work in it. She has an unbounded enthusi- 
asm that communicates itself to all her co-workers. 



CIVIL -AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 217 

She is magnetic and her winning manner commands 
both love and respect wherever she appears. As a 
presiding officer she is unsurpassed, and by a wave 
of the hand can still a disturbance. Mrs. Carrie 
Chapman Catt, leader of the suffrage movement in 
the United States, has not been slow to recognize 
this, and Miss Hay now works side by side with 
Mrs. Catt in the suffrage body of which she is a 
member. Miss Hay is also president of the New 
York Woman Suffrage party and a board member 
of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs, in 
which she is a recognized leader. 

All unconscious to herself, Mary Garrett Hay 
was trained to her work from earliest childhood. 
Her father was, as his father before him had been, 
an eminent physician. He was also a man highly 
respected in politics and presided over conventions 
and meetings which gathered in the village of 
Charlestown, where Mary Garrett Hay was born. 
She went with her father to these public meetings 
and often stood by him on the platform while he 
presided. What she heard here was a shaping influ- 
ence in after life. 

One of her ancestors surveyed the ground and laid 
out Charlestown. It was here that Jonathan Jennings, 
first Governor of Indiana, came to claim his bride, the 
beautiful Anna Hay, great-aunt of Mary Garrett 
Hay. In her young womanhood, Miss Hay came with 
her father, Dr. Hay, from Charlestown to Indianapo- 



218 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

lis to live and soon became interested in the temper- 
ance work, where after a time her organizing ability 
brought her in close touch with Zerelda Wallace, 
Mrs. Luella McWhirter, and other prominent work- 
ers in temperance. Later, she was discovered by 
Miss Lodie Reed, editor of a temperance paper 
called the Organizer. Miss Reed also recognized 
the ability of Mary Garrett Hay and made her an 
assistant on the paper. While in this work, Miss 
Hay was fully abreast of the temperance movement, 
as indeed she is at the present day. She soon 
learned, along with Frances Willard and many 
others, that if women were to work effectively in 
temperance they must have the ballot. Long before 
Miss Hay was born, Frances Wright had lifted up 
her voice for the enfranchisement of woman in 
southern Indiana. Her voice was the first to be 
heard before public gatherings on this subject. The 
Quakers, in northeastern Indiana, had declared that 
woman should have a voice in the law as elsewhere. 
Memorials to the Indiana legislature had been sent 
by the Eastern Suffrage Association without avail, 
but the cause then had no strong footing in this 
state. It was looked upon rather as a novelty than 
a possible reality. 

As time went by, Mary Garrett Hay went to New 
York city to help as organizer in a larger field of 
suffrage work. She was at once associated with 
Susan B. Anthony, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 



CIVIL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 219 

and later with the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, and, 
as has been said, with Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt. 

In the official rooms of this New York suffrage 
movement, where Miss Hay works early and late, 
there gather women of the rich and the poorer 
classes, those of leisure and of labor, native and for- 
eign born, all to discuss together ways and means 
for the furtherance of suffrage in the city and state 
of New York, and indirectly in the non-suffrage 
states. Miss Hay makes frequent trips as suffrage 
organizer wherever she is needed in the United 
States. She went to California on such a mission in 
1896, to aid in the suffrage campaign there in that 
year. While the work did not result in a triumph, 
it placed the wedge and success was won a few years 
later. To-day the California women feel as if they 
had always cast the vote. 

Miss Hay is a true daughter of Indiana, and is 
now president of the Indiana Society of New York. 
She wrote to a friend in Indianapolis upon learning 
oft a part-suffrage bill passed by the last legislature, 
that she kept close watch upon everything that her 
sisters in the old Hoosier state were doing. She 
spoke of the great gratification given her by the 
part-suffrage bill, and trusted that in the making of 
a new constitution of Indiana there would be 
granted to the women of the state full suffrage. 

Indiana has no more loyal daughter on her soil 
than this woman, Mary Garrett Hay, now trans- 



220 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

planted in New York, but ever cherishing her love 
for the state of her birth, and at all times seeking 
opportunity in her service to the world to do some- 
thing for the women of Indiana. 



CHAPTER VIII 
Torch Bearers in Art and Music 

THE men and women who founded Indiana 
brought with them memories of the old homes 
which they left and the art instincts that belong to 
the human race. Before the days of the daguerreo- 
type or the chromo or the illustrated paper, and 
much else that is cheap, born since that time, they 
found joy in the song of the bird and the whisper 
of the winds and found strength in the giant trees 
and in the on-going processes of nature. The house- 
wife brought in the jar of wild roses for the mantel 
and filled the fireplace in summer with asparagus. 
Her snowy curtains and clean floor, the wall spaces, 
the homemade furniture of good material, good line, 
good workmanship, and the old-time cradle, along 
with the "candle stand" on which was found at all 
times the family Bible, gave the home the spirit of 
peace, and filled out the dictum of William Morris, 
"Have nothing in your house that you do not know 
to be useful or believe to be beautiful." Indeed, 
some of these homes formed a great contrast to the 
dynamic effect experienced upon looking at the walls 
of the modern college student, where there are ban- 
ners and cartoons and all manner of souvenirs. The 

221 



222 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

American tapestry, the coverlet, and the artistic 
quilts and textile fabrics came later to satisfy the 
taste for industrial arts. 

Mr. William Forsythe has placed before the pub- 
lic an instructive pamphlet in which he gives sketches 
and records the names of the artists of Indiana along 
the various lines. Among those mentioned we have 
been interested to read of the training and life of 
such men as Theodore C. Steele, who has put Brown 
County on canvas so well that a neighbor of Mr. 
Steele's said to the writer : "It is very strange that 
I have lived here all my life and never saw Brown 
County until I went to Mr. Steele's studio on the 
hill. We have been interested in looking at the por- 
traits of Wayman Adams, who is already reckoned 
among the first of the artists in this branch of paint- 
ing; at the marvelous beech trees of J. E. Bundy; at 
the lifelike children of Otto Stark; at the sea-views 
of the late J. B. Gruelle; of the landscapes of Will- 
iam Forsythe, J. Ottis Adams, and of many others 
who exhibit yearly in the John Herron Art Insti- 
tute of Indianapolis. 

In the illustrators art, beside Fred C. Yohn, are 
Franklin Booth, who has won national reputation, 
and Will Vawter, who is said to be one of the most 
sympathetic illustrators of Riley's poems. 

Upon approaching the State House from the 
Washington street front one thinks with gratitude 
of Frances M. Goodwin, of Newcastle, for her 



ART AND MUSIC 223 

sculptured bust of Robert Dale Owen. The sculp- 
tors, Melza B. Wilson, of Madison, now working 
on great cathedral sculptures in New York, and 
Myra Talbot Richards, who is coming to be known 
as a sculptor of portrait busts, deserve mention here. 

The architecture in Indiana bears the stamp of 
the Middle West. One of the later architectural 
features observed in passing over the state is the 
new school-houses erected in almost every county. 
These buildings, for the most part, have sunken 
roofs, which lend to them an unfinished appearance. 
Architecture is one of the noblest of arts, and it is 
to be hoped that some one in Indiana will arise to 
give it distinction in the buildings and homes of the 
state. As yet the most pretentious building in 
every county seat is the courthouse, and there are 
some churches and bank buildings that deserve com- 
mendation. 

The singing in early Indiana lent itself mostly 
to the service of religion and was cultivated at the 
singing-schools, which in a way corresponded to the 
modern chorus. Indiana now boasts of teachers in 
all branches of musical art. There are pioneer cho- 
rus and orchestral leaders like Professor Ernesti- 
noff and composers like the late Clarence Forsythe, 
to whom we are indebted for an arrangement of 
folk-songs. There are also the Riley-songs, arranged 
by Frederick Krull, Barclay Walker, Elizabeth Cot- 
ton and others. And thus we see that the growth of 



224 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

music in Indiana has steadily progressed. Thaddeus 
Rich and Eddie Brown have made Indiana known 
by their violin playing. Oliver Willard Pierce is a 
great pianist and a great teacher. 



WILLIAM MERITT CHASE 
Torch Bearer as Painter and Teacher of Art 

"I happen to be a member of the most magnifi- 
cent profession that the world knows. ... It 
has a standard, established for all time, of the high- 
est dignity; so much so that I believe I am voicing 
the opinion of every member of my profession when 
I say that one of the thoughts in our minds is that 
when we pass away we will leave a record of having 
lived here. 

"I am happy in the thought that interest in art is 
increasing in America; that whereas a few years 
ago we had scarcely any art museums, we now have 
many. There is no influence of so refining a na- 
ture as really pure, great art." 

The foregoing words spoken by Mr. Chase at a 
dinner before the American Federation of Arts in 
Washington, D. C, in 1916, not many months be- 
fore his death, are full of significance. They came 
from the full heart of one who was voicing his 
highest ideals ; first, in taking his art seriously ; sec- 
ond, in the belief that the real masters wrought for 



ART AND MUSIC 225 

all time and are thus bound to leave their mark. In 
the next place he voiced his pride in American art, 
in which he was a pioneer, looking back from more 
than a quarter of a century to the time when he re- 
fused the offer of a six years' position in Munich to 
return to America and cast his lot with the new art 
of the New World. This also sounds the key-note of 
patriotism, which was one of his marked character- 
istics. He always insisted that American art was to 
be the art of the future; that here was life, oppor- 
tunity, material for the artist and, above all, a great 
national inspiration. 

William Meritt Chase was born in the town of 
Franklin, Indiana, in 1849. He always had what 
he called a knack for drawing, but it was not until 
the age of nineteen that he dedicated himself to 
the art of painting. In that year he came to Indi- 
anapolis and entered the studio of B. F. Hayes, 
where he made rapid progress and where he met 
Jacob Cox, a well-known artist of Indiana at that 
time. 

A two years' study in New York was followed 
by residence in St. Louis, where he developed re- 
markable skill in painting still-life; thence to Munich 
for six years under Piloty and the inspiration of 
the old masters in the galleries ; thence to Paris and 
back to New York. Here he began work in earnest ; 
his apprenticeship was ended. 

He was most faithful in all of his technique and 



226 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

handled his brush with the stroke of a master at all 
times. He was equally at home with crayon, pastel, 
water colors or paint. His subjects ranged from 
still-life through landscape to portraiture. His first 
fondness for still-life never left him. Portraits 
from his brush hang in many galleries in the United 
States. Among some of the favorites are "Alice," 
"Dorothy," "The Lady with the White Shawl," and 
"My Mother." He also made portraits of many col- 
lege presidents and various other personages. 

In landscape he made some of his most charming 
sketches at Shinnecock, a point on Long Island 
where he went in 1891 and founded a summer 
school, which continued through eight years. 

In future verdicts of Mr. Chase's service in art, 
his teaching will perhaps stand forth more than it 
does to-day; for he was a born teacher. Much of 
the time in which he had charge of the Art League 
in New York he was conducting summer tours 
abroad, and once met forty students in Florence for 
a term. As a teacher he was severe in his stand- 
ards, critical in his judgments and penetrating in 
his insight into the character of his students. His 
piercing eyes could tell at a glance what was wrong 
with the work before him. He had days for certain 
work and always reserved a time for tramping. 
Both when he painted and when he taught he found 
marvelous inspiration in nature, and revealed New 
York and Franklin Square to people who had looked 



ART AND MUSIC 227 

upon their vistas and parks and mists so many years 
yet had seen nothing. 

To show how this spirit permeated his family life, 
his little daughter, standing at the window, once 
said, "Papa, come quick ; here is a cloud posing for 
you." 

He made many trips to Spain to place himself 
under the spell of his beloved Velasquez. It was 
on one of these journeys that he stopped in Eng- 
land, and there at Grosvener Gallery saw Whistler's 
"Miss Alexander." The painting had a charm for 
him that he never forgot. But he did not make 
Whistler's acquaintance until the next year. 

Among Chase's other friends were George In- 
ness, Walter Shirlaw, La Farge, Manet, Homer, 
and others. One will have to refer to the "Who's 
Who?" book to read of the great number of medals 
and prizes received by Chase for his works and 
the great honors conferred upon him at home and 
abroad. His own country honored him at the Cen- 
tennial Exposition with a medal for a painting sent 
at that time from abroad, and the Paris Exposition 
gave him a medal in 1900. 

There was a strain of idealism running through 
Mr. Chase's nature. This is illustrated in the little 
story of the "White Canvas." He told one of his 
friends that always beside the easel upon which 
he worked, there was a "white canvas," untouched. 
When he thought out his pictures, he thought of 



228 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

them as on the "white canvas," but he painted them 
on another canvas by the side of it. He remarked 
that many people did not understand this, and in- 
deed, some interpreters gave it out that there was a 
literal white canvas, visible to the eye. 

"When the story of American art is finally told, 
Chase's name will be high on the list of the great." 
— Gifford Beal in the January Scribner. 



JANET SCUDDER 
Torch Bearer in Sculpture 

The name of Janet Scudder, engraved on the 
Indiana Centennial Medal which she designed, is 
now spoken familiarly in the homes and schools of 
our state, and her high rank among the sculptors of 
America rightly gives her this honor. 

Janet Scudder was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, 
October 27, 1873, where she was educated in the 
graded and high schools. Her art training began 
in Cincinnati under Louis F. Rebisso; she spent 
three years in Chicago under Lorado Taft and after- 
ward continued her studies in Paris, finally becom- 
ing the pupil of Frederick MacMonnies. 

Miss Scudder is the only American woman sculp- 
tor who has been honored by having specimens of 
her art bought by the French government and placed 
in the Luxembourg Museum, Paris. One of these 



ART AND MUSIC 229 

pieces, a portrait bust, has been reproduced in gold 
and another in silver. She has had studios in Chi- 
cago, New York, Paris and Florence for a number 
of years at different times. During her stay in Italy 
her interest in fountains became so great that she 
has given much time to this form of sculptural art, 
which exhibits her power of making her frogs and 
children harmonize in the places they occupy in her 
designs. She has embodied the joyous nature of 
children and made them gay without making them 
trivial and her whole structure bears the marks of 
dignity and grace. 

Miss Scudder's first order was for a lamp-post; 
following this was one for a seal for the New York 
Bar Association. While she was studying in Chi- 
cago, she was given orders by the Columbian Expo- 
sition Board for heroic sized figures to be placed in 
the Illinois and the Indiana state buildings, and it 
was at this exposition she was awarded a bronze 
medal for her exhibits. In 1904, at the Louisiana 
Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, she exhibited a 
bronze sun-dial, for which she again received a 
bronze medal. Her work ranges through medals, 
seals, sun-dials, cinerary memorials, fountains, por- 
trait busts and heroic-sized figures. 

Miss Scudder has the distinction of producing 
one of the thirty illustrative statues of Oriental and 
classical ideals for the Brooklyn Institute of Arts 
and Sciences. Her figure, placed on the facade, was 



230 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

the only contribution by a woman. This piece of 
work is twelve feet high and represents a Japanese 
sun goddess ; it is highly praised as being a gravely 
dignified sculptural creation. 

Miss Scudder's specimens of work in the United 
States have been purchased and placed as follows : 
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York 
City; in the Congressional Library at Washington, 
D. C. In her native state, Indiana, besides the Cen- 
tennial Memorial Medal, she is represented by a 
Frog Fountain and medals in the John Herron Mu- 
seum of Fine Arts at Indianapolis; by a bronze me- 
morial tablet to Arthur Middleton Reeves, at Rich- 
mond; The Wood Nymph, a colossal statue in 
plaster, in the Emmeline Fairbanks Library of Terre 
Haute. 

In appearance, Miss Scudder is large and grace- 
ful, with hands that speak capacity. She herself 
would make a fine model for a Greek goddess. She 
is approachable, genial in manner, and kindly in tem- 
perament, but withal showing critical judgments in 
art, and with an artistic conscience which cannot 
be made to accept an order for w r ork unless it be 
placed in a suitable environment, which would form 
an organic part of the composition. 

Miss Scudder relates an interesting anecdote in 
connection with her early study. It was at a time 
when she was taking up wood-carving as a profes- 
sion, and had been employed to do its finer w T ork by 



ART AND MUSIC 231 

a Chicago firm. Shortly after her establishment 
there, she was waited upon by a walking delegate 
who declared she must be put out because she was 
a non-union worker and a woman, and that she 
had no right to compete with the men who ought to 
have the job. From this encounter, she left wood- 
carving and at once turned her attention to sculp- 
ture. For this she has always been grateful, and 
in looking back over the steps in her early career she 
feels her indebtedness to the walking delegate. 

At the outbreak of the present European conflict 
Miss Scudder was working in France and offered 
her estate at Ville d'Avray, near Paris, to the min- 
istry of war as a hospital, for which purpose it was 
used. She then moved her studio- to Paris, and as- 
sisted in the Red Cross work of France before she 
came home to resume her work in New York City. 
She is at present designing a commemoration medal 
for the United States government to be presented by 
the latter to the commissioners who represented 
South America in the Mexican mediation. 

Some art critics have associated the name of Miss 
Scudder with those of Augustus St. Gaudens in 
America and Victor D. Brenner in France, as sculp- 
tor medallists. 



232 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

AMALIA KUESSNER COUDERT 
Torch Bearer in the Art of Miniature Painting 

"What old masters did you study?" was asked. 

"None; who taught the old masters?" was the 
answer given by Amalia Kiissner as she stood in 
the wondering crowd which was admiring her work, 
exhibited in New York, whither she had come a 
few weeks before. 

Paints and oils, a brush of not more than six 
hairs, an eye with an unerring artistic power to see 
the true and the beautiful, a hand able to place the 
most delicate lines on a porcelain surface by the 
aid of a magnifying glass, a few samples of her 
work and a sublime assurance of her ability to carry 
out her life purpose of miniature portrait painting, 
these were the only equipments taken by Amalia 
Kiissner when she left her home to try her fortune 
in the great metropolis of New York. Upon her 
unheralded arrival there, she entered the studio of a 
social leader and art connoisseur and showed him 
some of her work. Upon looking at it he shook his 
head and told her there was no demand for such 
work as that. It was not what the world wanted. 
It was too fine and too costly. He then held before 
her a portrait of his daughter, photographed on 
porcelain and touched up in color, saying, "This is 
what the world wants." She left his studio disap- 



ART AND MUSIC 233 

pointed but not discouraged. This same man later 
stood before her work and must have seen that his 
first judgments were not well founded. 

Soon after this exhibit of her miniatures in New 
York, doors were opened to her as if with magic 
keys. Orders came in abundance from the wealth 
and beauty of the great city, and the artist, with the 
divine passion for her art, painted night and day, 
receiving for her portraits a liberal remuneration. 
Among the New York admirers of Miss Kussner s 
work was Lady Paget of England. She invited 
the young artist to come across the water, promis- 
ing to place her work before the British public. 
When she responded to this invitation, Miss Kuss- 
ner found a willing champion in London for her 
art in Sir John Millais. In London, as in New 
York, orders fairly flowed in. She made miniature 
portraits of the Duchess of Marlborough, the King 
of England and many of the English nobility. 

In 1899 Miss Kussner went to the Court of Rus- 
sia, where she made miniature portraits of the Czar, 
the Czarina and some of the Russian nobility. In 
the autumn of the same year, she went to Africa to 
paint the portrait of Cecil Rhodes. 

Upon her return to New York in 1900, she was 
married to Charles D. Coudert of that city. Her 
marriage did not stop her life-work, but left her 
free to paint such studies as she chose on account of 
their artistic value. Here she has since practiced 



234 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

miniature portrait painting, going abroad when she 
desired. 

Though the name Kiissner is German, her style 
is more after the manner of the French. She 
clothes her figures in some general fashion which 
will not fade with the passing hour. The prices for 
her miniatures range in the thousands. 

Those who know only the finished miniature can 
not conceive of the concentrated effort, care and 
delicacy of touch, and the patience required to make 
this gem of portrait painting. 

Amalia Kiissner is well remembered in her native 
town, Terre Haute, Indiana, as a most beautiful 
woman, full of life and spirit, engaging in manner, a 
most fairy-like dancer ready to take part in any of 
the joyous sports of youth. However, there are evi- 
dences also of the genius lying beneath this appar- 
ent levity. Upon the occasion of her graduation 
from high school, she startled the audience which 
had been listening to the previous speakers settling 
the problems of life and art and literature, by the 
announcement, "Money lost, nothing lost; Honor 
lost, much lost; Courage lost, all lost." Many of 
her friends also recall her skill in drawing at "St. 
Mary's of the Woods," where she went at the age 
of six, carrying with her her little stove and dolls. 

Indiana has no prouder character record than that 
of the young girl, Amalia Kiissner, who, with a di- 
vine determination, followed the life-work which 



ART AND MUSIC 235 

came to her as a necessity which she could not but 
follow. 

FRED COFFAY YOHN 
Torch Bearer in the Illustrator's Art 

Fred Coffay Yohn was discovered through an 
exhibition of his work at the Art League in New 
York in 1894, where he had gone to study under 
Siddons Mowbray. 

The Harper Brothers at once gave him employ- 
ment as illustrator on the pages of their magazines. 
During the twenty-three years since that time he 
has enjoyed increasing appreciation as an illustrator 
by the reading public of the United States, and un- 
sought opportunities have come to him. 

Fred C. Yohn was only eighteen years of age 
when he started to New York and his marked suc- 
cess was no surprise to his friends back home in 
Indianapolis, Indiana, where he was born in 1875, 
and where he had lived up to that time. As his illus- 
trations began to appear in the magazines, his for- 
mer teachers called to mind the wonderful exactness 
and care with which he illustrated his lessons in 
English and history and geography, and more than 
one of them said, "Truly 'The child is father of the 
man'." 

For the characteristics which mark him to-day, 
accuracy in drawing and truth in portrayal of sub- 



236 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

ject, linked with an enormous patience, were all 
noted in his class work, and later at the Indianapolis 
Art School, where he studied for one year. 

As an evidence of his painstaking method in his 
work, he told the writer of his year in England 
while making his illustrations for the "Life of Crom- 
well," by Roosevelt. It was easy to see from his 
account the conscientiousness with which he visited 
museums and took down the old armor and time- 
worn costumes, and sat before figures posed in them 
from day to day, till he was satisfied that his illus- 
trations were true to life. 

A further example of his painstaking is shown in 
the splendid illustrations which brought him renown 
in Cabot Lodge's "Story of the American Revolu- 
tion." These pictures, though continuously telling 
the story, stand out as individual art units, each of 
worth by itself and for its own sake. 

In preparation for this book, he went to Chicka- 
mauga Park, where a large number of soldiers were 
stationed, making ready for the Cuban war. This 
opportunity enabled him to mass the men and draw 
from life, often placing single individuals in the 
background for artistic effect. His sketch for the 
battle of Brandywine was done in oil, and a camp 
scene at Valley Forge done in black and white. 
While he can work in any medium, his latest pref- 
erence is for oil, and following the natural course 
of many illustrators, he has developed along the 



ART AND MUSIC 237 

line of painting. His taste leans toward battle 
scenes. Some of his earlier illustrations were for 
the frontier sketches of Theodore Roosevelt; for 
serials by James Barnes and Molly Eliott Seawell; 
Scribner's and Harper's Magazines and Collier's 
Weekly. 

Mr. Yohn married Gertrude Klamrock, of New 
York, in 1908, and now lives in New York. 

It is said that no other man in this country has 
achieved so great success in his art at so early an 
age, nor sustained himself more creditably. Indeed, 
some critics say he has but one superior in the il- 
lustrator's art, and that is Howard Pyle. Indiana 
is proud to have one of her sons achieve such rank. 



EDWIN MAY 
Torch Bearer in Architecture 

"The Bible of Amiens" is the name used by John 
Ruskin for one of his chapters on architecture. In 
speaking of the great cathedral of Amiens as a book 
he enables us to read the meanings of its saints, and 
carvings and naves and spires. In more than one 
place he refers to architecture as a book which con- 
tains the very life of the nations that, patiently 
through centuries, reared the noble structures which 
express their aspirations and religious ideas. The 
modern age is the age of the machine, and Mr. Pen- 



238 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

nell tells us in his "Wonder of Work" that we must 
learn to look upon the modern buildings, and espe- 
cially upon bridges, as noble works of art in their per- 
fect adjustment of material and structure to a def- 
inite end. He reminds us that while we must ever 
go back to Greece and Rome for patterns of en- 
gineering and artistic architectural design, we must 
also learn to look upon the builder's art of our gen- 
eration as a triumph over obstacles and an attempt 
to embody the new spirit. As a proof of our indebt- 
edness to Grecian architecture we have only to look 
at the State Institution for the Blind with its Ionic 
pillars and portico and to remember the old State 
House modeled half a century ago after the Par- 
thenon, and then to behold the Federal Building, 
also Grecian in style. These structures are all in the 
capital of Indiana. The architects of the first two 
are only names to us now; but a third builder came 
later into the field. This man was Edwin May, archi- 
tect of the present State Capitol. 

Edwin May was born in Boston in 1824, and when 
a lad between fourteen and sixteen came to Madison. 
At the age of eighteen he came with his father to In- 
dianapolis (1842). Here he worked as a carpenter 
for eight years, when he began the study of architec- 
ture and became so proficient that he was considered 
one of the first professional architects that Indianap- 
olis had. Among the many buildings in Indiana ac- 



ART AND MUSIC 239 

credited to Edwin May are the Indiana Northern 
Prison, finished in 1858 ; part of the Central Hospital 
for the Insane ; the courthouses for Knox, Hamilton 
and other counties, and many jails and schoolhouses. 
At the time of his death, it was said that all the new 
ward school buildings in Indianapolis were erected 
in accordance with his plans. 

The present State Capitol of Indiana is partic- 
ularly associated with his name as its architect, and 
was in process of construction at the time of his 
death, which occurred at Jacksonville, Florida, on 
February 27, 1880. He left a widow, son and daugh- 
ter, who for several legislative sessions after his 
death tried to recover from the state money for 
services rendered, which claim was generally re- 
garded as just, but its settlement was long delayed. 

Though Edwin May did not live to see the de- 
sign of our State Capitol in material form, he had 
pictured it to himself mentally, and we can not doubt 
that the noble proportions which he gave the dome 
of this building must have been to him a pleasing 
thought. People forty miles from Indianapolis, 
in certain times of the day and year, can see the 
State House dome, and feel a degree of pride in its 
ownership as citizens of Indiana. 

His name is written in contracts for public build- 
ings over a large part of Indiana, while the man him- 
self is, for the most part, forgotten. It is worth 



240 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

while, however, to associate his name with our 
State Capitol and, when we enjoy the proportions 
of its dome, to think of its designer. 

One other Indiana architect deserves mention in 
this place for his originality in architectural decora- 
tion. Louis H. Gibson, designer of the Law Build- 
ing in Indianapolis, believed that every environment 
should furnish some elements worthy to be memo- 
rialized in stone or tile. He claimed that our com- 
mon thistle was as beautiful as the Greek acanthus 
if used with the dexterity of the Greeks. He also 
cited many other native plants beautiful for archi- 
tectural ornament, and for the decoration of the 
Law Building he chose the sagittaria, or arrow plant, 
from the swamps north of Indianapolis; he made 
of this plant designs which he had burned in plaques 
at the encaustic tile works and placed on the face 
of the Law Building, which may be seen to-day, 
and which stands as his memorial. 



ART AND MUSIC 241 

SARAH LAYTON WALKER CAHIER 
Torch Bearer of Song 

It is children's day, 1908, in Christiania, Norway's 
capital. The city has been astir since early morn- 
ing; on this day every one feels that he must do 
something for the benefit of the poor children. A 
very unusual sight is seen coming up the street, the 
crowd increases as there passes along a wagon con- 
taining a piano and two gypsy singers whose sweet 
songs stir all hearts, making the occasion one never 
to be forgotten. The enthusiasm of the students of 
the university is boundless, they remove the horses 
from the wagon and draw it through the streets 
themselves. 

Such a demonstration has never been made here 
before for any artist since Jenny Lind, except for 
Christine Nilsson. And who are the gypsy singers ? 
They are Sadie Layton Walker Cahier of Indiana 
and her husband, Dr. Carl Cahier, of Stockholm, 
whom she married at Nice some time before. 

Sadie Layton Walker was born in Tennessee, and 
at the age of six came to Indianapolis with her par- 
ents, Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Walker. 

This Torch Bearer of Song inherited a musical 
talent from her mother, and before she was three 
years old was singing self -composed alto to two 
dozen airs, accompanying her aunt, who sang the 



242 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

soprano. Later, under her able teacher, Professor 
Ernestinoff, of Indianapolis, Sadie Walker's voice 
was strengthened and broadened from one octave to 
three, retaining all of its sweetness. From Indian- 
apolis she went to Cleveland to take a position in the 
leading quartet choir, and while there she made two 
trips to Europe to perfect her musical education. 
Following this she sang in New York. 

Her musical career is filled with accounts of 
preparation, successes, and names of the great mas- 
ters under whom she studied. On her fourth trip 
to Europe she sought the instruction of Jean de 
Reszke, and after fifteen months' study with him 
made her debut at Nice, France, February 12, 1904, 
as Orpheus in "Orpheus and Eurydice." In singing 
the three verses of the air "I have lost my Euryd- 
ice," she went through the first stanza at half voice 
with a constrained sorrow, in the second with a voice 
strangled and broken with sobs, and in the third she 
rose to a pitch of violent and tumultuous expres- 
sion, ending in despair. The audience and the 
critics called it great art and praised her acting as 
highly as her singing. To the loving mother that 
waited in Indianapolis, the cablegram after the great 
ovation contained only two words, "tremendous 
success," but the mothers heart was able to expand 
these two words into volumes of satisfaction. 

The story of Madame Cahier from this time is 
one of continued ovations. After this triumph at 



ART AND MUSIC 243 

Nice she sang through France in soirees, and 
through the German provinces as star for local com- 
panies; she also sang in Paris and in Berlin, where 
she was called to the royal box and complimented 
and invited to sing at the Queen's Church. This 
high honor being accepted, the queen attended and 
received her afterward. 

In November, 1912, she came home to see her 
family and appeared for one evening in the well- 
known Ona B. Talbot concerts. The house was 
crowded with friends, and the large and representa- 
tive audience was very enthusiastic. Upon the pres- 
entation of a wreath to her at the close of the eve- 
ning the speaker who offered it said : 

"This comes to you from the hands and the 
hearts of your friends, from the people that have 
known you and loved you and followed your suc- 
cess." Referring to a song just heard he said : 
"We have not lost our Eurydice, we have found 
her." The audience gave its approval with long 
applause. 

In response Madame Cahier said : "I have felt al- 
ways that I have had love and the hearts of my 
friends with me. I wish to thank the Matinee Mu- 
sicale for this wreath, and I feel that every leaf is a 
friend. While I am speaking, I wish publicly to 
thank one who, by her example, ambition, and her 
love, has been my inspiration, and that is my 
mother." As she spoke she turned to the box where 



244 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

her mother, Mrs. I. N. Walker, was sitting. After 
a moment she stood smiling and said : 

"It seems strange that I should come to the very 
spot where I made my debut in opera. When I 
was a child with my sister Percy, my brother Lay- 
ton, George Morris and myself, we gave that opera 
at the Beatty homestead, which stood on this site." 

In addition to the many floral tributes was a 
box, and when Madame Cahier opened it there was 
a beautiful silk flag presented by the George H. 
Thomas W. R. C. in memory of her father, Col. I. 
N. Walker. 

Madame Cahier still lives in Stockholm. The fol- 
lowing account of her work has been received: 

"King Gustav of Sweden lately conferred upon 
her the highest order for literature and art, a beauti- 
ful emblem in gold with the kingly crown, an order 
of great significance presented previously only to 
Jenny Lind and Christine Nilsson. 

Madame Cahier stands to-day as one of the most 
honored, loved and sought- for artists, not alone on 
the Scandinavian peninsula but in Germany and 
Austria." 

The rich contralto of her voice appeals directly 
to the deepest emotions of the listener and leaves 
her audience lifted up by the power of song. Her 
honors are not recorded for honor's sake alone, but 
for the song's sake. 



CHAPTER IX 
Torch Bearers in Letters 

IOWELL speaks of the whirling earth, the wan- 
^dering winds, the falling rain and the rising 
and setting suns that it takes "to prosper a poor 
little violet.'' Who can tell us what additional forces 
it takes to make a man of letters? Who can meas- 
ure the far-off blended strains of race and inherit- 
ance that appear and reappear? Who can measure 
the strength and quality of the imagination that 
the writer employs in making use of nature, of en- 
vironment, of people, and of the increment of civ- 
ilization, past and present? 

As the pioneers found the rivers the first high- 
ways of travel, and settled along their valleys and 
on their banks, so we to-day can look back to these 
places and see Torch Bearers in letters up to the 
present time. Coming down the Ohio and begin- 
ning at Lawrenceburg in the southeastern part 
of the State, there was Henry Ward Beecher, a 
young man of twenty-three, who had come to take 
charge of his first pastorate and later to become 
known as a man of letters. In this same town James 
Buchanan Eads was born, and though a world- 
famed engineer, he wrote with great clearness. 

Farther down in Vevay, settled in 1796, there still 

245 



246 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

lingers the benign influence of Julia Dumont and of 
the Egglestons. It was in Madison that the early 
poems of Sarah T. Bolton first saw print. Hanover, 
that beautiful point overlooking the river at Madi- 
son, is hallowed by the name of John Finley Crowe. 

At New Albany, still farther down the river, the 
halo of Forsythe Wilson, who lived and wrote the 
"Old Sergeant," and of William Vaughn Moody 
still rest over the place, while Emma Carlton is there 
now to keep watch over the ancient glory. 

Corydon, not far back from the river, will al- 
ways be dear to the Hoosier heart as the place 
where Indiana was made a State by men able in law 
and in letters. Evansville to-day is lighted by the 
torch of the stories by Annie Fellows Johnston and 
Mrs. Albion Fellows Bacon. Coming up the Wa- 
bash, is New Harmony, whose praise has already 
been fitly sung. Farther up we reach the post of 
old Vincennes, where the first printing press estab- 
lished the republic of letters in 1804. Farther still, 
Terre Haute comes in sight, and the spirit of the 
Honorable R. W. Thompson is felt, and we think 
of it as the birthplace of Theodore Dreiser, who 
is now handing on the torch of fiction in a most 
acceptable way. Crawfordsville, in the valley of the 
Wabash, is indeed a literary center, made so by 
Caleb Mills through his pamphlets, Maurice Thomp- 
son, Lew Wallace, Susan Wallace and Mary Han- 
nah Krout. Here, too, lived Will H. Thompson, 



LETTERS 247 

whose poem, "The High Tide at Gettysburg," is 
already immortal. On this same river is Lafayette, 
where a great educational scheme is now being 
worked out and from which such men of letters as 
George Ade are sent forth. Cross over to the north- 
eastern part of the State, to the banks of the St. 
Joseph, and here Charles A. Bartlett has told for us 
the "Story of Kankakee Land," and here Notre 
Dame lifts its dome as a school of letters. Coming 
on down to the White Water region, we find mem- 
ories of George W. Julian, in Wayne County, whose 
pen graced the pages of an earlier time. Farther 
south is the distinguished town of Brookville, which 
has a long honor roll of governors, statesmen and 
men of letters and illustrious citizens. Lew Wallace 
was born here, and the memories of Louisa Chit- 
wood and Elizabeth Conwell Wilson are still cher- 
ished. Reaching Union County, farther toward the 
Ohio, the circle has been made. Here Joaquin Mil- 
ler first saw the light and here a tablet was unveiled 
to him in 1916 in the name of "the poet of the 
Sierras." 

By and by, the fierce-throated whistle of the steam 
engine began changing the centers of the olden time, 
and now not only the river banks and valleys, but 
the railway centers are noted because Indiana has 
itself taken high rank in the field of literature. 

There is no realm which has not been invaded 
by the writers of this state. 



248 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

History, from the time of John Dillon, first real 
historian in Indiana, to that of Logan Esarey, con- 
tains a long list of worthy names, among which 
Daniel Wait Howe may be called a pioneer in his- 
torical writings ; and aside from what has been said 
earlier in this book, the name of Amos S. Hershey 
deserves honorable mention as a writer of Interna- 
tional Law. 

Historic facts have been illuminated in a very in- 
teresting way for the younger readers in such books 
as "Pioneer Stories," by Florence Bass; "Indian 
Stories," by Jacob P. Dunn; "Bears of Blue River," 
by Charles Major; "On the Wea Trail," by Caroline 
Brown; "Knights in Fustian," by Caroline Krout. 
As a true picture of Civil War times Miss Catharine 
Merrill wrote the "Indiana Soldier." "In My 
Youth," over the pseudonym of Robert Dudley, is a 
realistic picture of early Indiana. "Once upon a Time 
in Indiana," edited by Charity Dye, was published 
by the Colonial Dames of Indiana as their Cen- 
tennial contribution. "The New Harmony Move- 
ment," by George B. Lockwood, is a real addition 
to the history of our State. "Alice of Old Vin- 
cennes," by Maurice Thompson; "Hearts' Haven," 
by Katherine E. Blake, and "Legionaries," by Wil- 
lard F. Cox, have all made history real. 

The field of biography by Indiana authors is wide. 
Richard W. Thompson of Terre Haute has given 
to the world "Recollections of Sixteen Presidents." 



LETTERS 249 

William Dudley Foulke has written a memorable 
life of Oliver P. Morton. Charles W. Moores wrote 
for the young people the lives of Abraham Lincoln 
and of Columbus. Albert J. Beveridge's "Life of 
John Marshall," which is a profound work, is just 
appearing. Ida Husted Harper is author of a most 
acceptable life of Susan B. Anthony. George Cary 
Eggleston's "Recollections of a Varied Life" also 
belongs in this class. 

In the field of nature we have Maurice Thomp- 
son's "Byways and Bird Notes" and "The Red- 
headed Family," both filled with the outdoor spirit. 
David Starr Jordan was claimed a Hoosier when 
he wrote his "Science Sketches." A little boy was 
known to rise at five o'clock in the morning, taking 
William Watson Woollen's "Birds of Buzzards' 
Roost" under his arm, and calling back to his 
mother, "I am going out to study the Birds." Gene 
Stratton-Porter has written in a most sympathetic 
way upon nature subjects, and Amos W. Butler has 
told most interestingly of a "Century of Change in 
Indiana" on birds and nature. 

Dramatic writing began in Indiana in 1825, with 
Robert Dale Owen's "Pocahontas." George Ade 
occupies a high place as a writer of dramatic plays. 
For the Centennial year Augusta Stevenson issued 
a series of short plays called "Romantic Indiana," 
and nowhere has the dramatic spirit been more fully 



250 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

illustrated than in the various pageant books writ- 
ten by Hoosiers during this Centennial celebration. 

Among writers who appear and have appeared in 
the magazines and papers may be mentioned Louise 
Closser Hale and Ida Husted Harper. Among 
newspaper writers Charles Dennis, now appearing 
as "Oldfish" in the Indianapolis News, is giving to 
the public delightful articles full of atmosphere and 
charm. George Browning Lockwood of Muncie and 
Louis Howland of Indianapolis are most notable 
editorial writers. The name of Oliver M. Saylor 
of Huntington has lately appeared in the "New Re- 
public" in an article on the Indiana Legislature, 
1917. 

From the "Hoosier's Nest" of John Findley to 
the "Fire Bringer" of William Vaughn Moody there 
has ever been a "song somewhere" in the state. 

There are also Evaleen Stein, Frances Morrison 
and many others whose verse is well known. 

Mr. Meredith Nicholson has covered the ground 
of Indiana literature in his book "The Hoosiers," 
and Mrs. Minnie Olcott Williams in her Centennial 
contribution, "Indiana Authors," has given selec- 
tions from the pens of over one hundred and fifty 
persons, thus making it unnecessary to name the 
long list of those belonging to the catalogue of In- 
diana authors. Since Indiana has rightly and sol- 
idly gained her place in the world of letters, it is 
now no longer asked, "Who reads a Hoosier book?" 



LETTERS 251 

THE EARLIER GROUP 

In addition to the names of James Whitcomb 
Riley, Sarah T. Bolton and Edward Eggleston as 
members of the earlier group, that of Benjamin 
Parker should be added. His poems are remem- 
bered with great pleasure. He had the singing soul, 
and saw what was in the corners of "The Old Rail 
Fence" and in "The Cabin in the Clearing" with the 
poet's eye and a naturalist's love. Maurice Thomp- 
son, although previously mentioned, should not be 
forgotten for his poems, "The Kankakee" and "The 
Wabash." 

SOME REMINISCENCES OF JAMES 
WHITCOMB RILEY 

No poet in his own life-time was ever more hon- 
ored in his own state than was James Whitcomb 
Riley in Indiana. When he had a great ovation 
in Cincinnati the school children gave him the key 
to the city, but he had long before this carried in 
his heart the golden key of love with which he had 
unlocked the admiration and sympathy of the Hoo- 
sier people. So much has been written of him that 
it seems superfluous to tell any biographical facts 
when they are so well known to every one in Indi- 
ana. It may not, however, be out of place to add 
two unpublished reminiscences of our beloved poet. 

Many of the friends of James Whitcomb Riley 



252 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

often found him at his best on the street, and espe- 
cially in the Bobbs-Merrill bookstore near the corner 
of Washington and Meridian Streets. The writer 
well remembers of once finding him in that store 
when all unconsciously he was drawn into a discus- 
sion of poetry, based upon the wonderful imagination 
of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Riley's favorite poet. 
He gave a most illuminating talk, contrasting the 
poetry of Mrs. Browning with that of Longfellow. 
He turned to the clerk behind the counter and said : 
"Hand me down Mrs. Browning's and Longfellow's 
poems." He read from Longfellow and then read 
from Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh" and said, 
"Don't you see the difference?" As he became in- 
terested his voice became louder, and in a few min- 
utes at least twelve people had gathered behind him 
to hear what the poet had to say. He read on and 
people gathered closer and he said : "Now Long- 
fellow is the poet of letters, Mrs. Browning is the 
great poet of life, and I do not place Robert Brown- 
ing ahead of her." Just then he looked around and 
saw what a company had gathered to hear him. He 
closed the book, turned around and walked out of 
the store. That little touch of Riley's life is very 
vivid and shows that the song that was "ever some- 
where" was uppermost in his mind at all times and 
places. 

, In 1907 when the writer was about ready to start 
for Europe she met Mr. Riley on the street, and 



LETTERS 253 

after the usual greetings said, "What shall I bring 
you from Europe?" Mr. Riley's blue eyes looked 
straight into her face : he said, "Nothing, nothing, 
but you might put a bunch of red roses on the grave 
of Elizabeth Barrett Browning if you go to Flor- 
ence; that is what I would like to have you do for 
me." 

Upon reaching Florence the writer and her com- 
panion went out to the Protestant cemetery the first 
afternoon. On the way they stopped at a florist's, 
one of them purchasing a bunch of beautiful red 
roses in answer to Mr. Riley's request, and the other 
a bunch of white roses for the grave of Theodore 
Parker. Upon reaching the tomb of Mrs. Brown- 
ing, a sarcophagus planned by Sir Frederick Leigh- 
ton, the red roses were laid on the slab beneath as a 
tribute from an Indiana poet to a poet of England 
and the two friends said verses from "He giveth 
His beloved sleep," as their own tribute to the great 
poet who lived in Florence, looked out from the 
Casa Guido windows and wrote "The Cry of the 
Children." After visiting the graves of Arthur 
Hugh Clough and Walter Savage Landor, they 
placed the white roses on the grave of Theodore 
Parker. As they came out the gate, the visitors 
saw the roses which they had placed on Mrs. Brown- 
ing's tomb in the hands of a group of American 
travelers. The visitor who placed the roses on Mrs. 
Browning's tomb said to the foremost one of the 



254 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

group, "I beg your pardon, but it might increase 
your interest in the roses you hold in your hand, to 
know that they were placed on the tomb of Mrs. 
Browning a few minutes ago by Americans in the 
name of an American poet, James Whitcomb Riley, 
of Indiana." She and her friend then took the cab 
and left the travelers still standing at the gate in 
what seemed to be a consultation. It is likely that 
these people thought the flowers had been placed 
there by some Florentine lover of the great poet. 
Upon telling Mr. Riley this later he nodded his head 
and said, ''Well, well, I am glad you put the roses 
there for me as my tribute to Mrs. Browning, but 
that is right hard on the Americans." 



SARAH T. BOLTON 

Sarah T. Bolton was not only a pioneer poet in 
Indiana, but she was a pioneer settler also. She 
came into the State over the old trails and traces, 
forded streams and settled in a cabin in the clearing 
near Vernon, Indiana, on Six Mile Creek. She al- 
ways saw the world with the poet's vision, and felt 
with the poet's emotions. Vernon, Madison and In- 
dianapolis all hold her memory sacred. Besides be- 
ing remembered in these places through personal 
contact with neighbors and friends, her verse has 
found lodgment in the hearts of all Hoosiers. 

Like Riley, Sarah T. Bolton was much before the 



LETTERS 255 

public during the Centennial year. Her patriotism, 
her moral enthusiasm, her love for humanity and 
for the beautiful have been recorded in her poems. 
Few people led a busier life than Mrs. Bolton, and 
few ever felt the joy of living more than she. 

The life of Sarah T. Bolton has not yet been ade- 
quately written, and there is ample opportunity for 
a post-centennial volume including her best letters 
and her best verse, and the record of her life em- 
bodied in these. It is no small boast for Indiana, 
during her one hundred years of statehood, to have 
had this woman, noble in mind, brilliant in conversa- 
tion, considerate for the feeling of all those around 
her, democratic in sentiment as all true poets are, 
and able to voice Hoosier life as Indiana's pioneer 
poet laureate. 

EDWARD EGGLESTON 

If Edward Eggleston were alive to-day, perhaps 
no one would be more surprised than he at the fame 
he gave to Indiana illiteracy through the ''Hoosier 
Schoolmaster." This book was one of our first ex- 
amples of realistic fiction in Indiana, and it is indel- 
ibly fixed in the minds of every reader. Its genesis 
was really accidental. In 1870, upon his resignation 
from the Independent, he took a position on the 
Hearth and Home. In order to swell the circulation 
he wrote the "Hoosier Schoolmaster" as a serial for 



256 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

this paper, in which he pictured life in Southern In- 
diana when his mother was a school-girl. The editor 
objected to the first chapter, saying it was too un- 
couth for the readers of the paper. However, the in- 
stallments continued, earning a great sum for the pa- 
per, and were afterwards bound in book form and 
given to the world. There has been nobody to write 
the other side in as attractive a way as that in which 
the "Hoosier Schoolmaster" is written. The scenes 
of this book were possibly true to more situations 
than the one pictured by Eggleston, but it must be 
remembered that there were private schools and 
academies in Southern Indiana at the time in which 
he was born, 1837. 

Eggleston was interested in every aspect of life, 
and was fond of the children, and always lent him- 
self to the best sentiments. In his letter to the 
school children of Indianapolis he gave them advice 
that will always endure. He said : 

"My advice to you is to try and have a good time 
in the world. Get your pleasures at your own, and 
not at other people's expense ; let it always be good, 
honest, clean happiness with nothing wrong about 
it. But don't on any account fail to have a good 
time. If life should go hard with you so that you 
can't have a very good time, why then, have just as 
good a time as you can at all hazards." 



LETTERS 257 



WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 

Who Held Aloft the Poet's Torch in the 
United States 

THE POET 

A Fragment 

Where's the Poet? show him! shozv him, 
Muses nine! that I may know him! 
'Tis the man who with a man 

Is an equal, be he King, 
Or poorest of the beggar-clan, 

Or any other wondrous thing 
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato, 

'Tis the man who with a bird, 
Wren or Eagle, finds his way to 

All its instincts, he hath heard 
The Lion's roaring, and can tell 

What his horny throat expresseth, 
And to him the Tiger's yell 

Comes articulate and presseth 
On his ear like mother-tongue. 

— John Keats. 

In Boston, March, 1900, a poet in rapt vision 
looked upon the monument to Robert Gould Shaw, 
made by St. Gaudens. His listening heart heard the 
tread of Spring coming over our vast country. He 
looked at the young leader, Robert Gould Shaw, 
followed by the men who died with him their land 



258 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

to save, their faces on the future fixed. The poet 
felt the brave sacrifice made by this loyal soldier 
years ago, and felt the lack of such a spirit now, 
when hesitation marked the hour. His vision 
strengthened and "An Ode in Time of Hesitation" 
sprang into being. This was William Vaughn 
Moody's clarion cry to the nation. He came to this 
spot known as an Indiana poet, but henceforth he 
was to become known as a national poet. Before 
this, he had written a dirge "On a Soldier Fallen in 
the Philippines," to whom he ascribed his full meed 
of praise for the great sacrifice of his life, made at 
the command of his country. 

It was not till a year after the writing of the Ode 
that Mr. Moody gave to the world a volume of his 
published poems. But before this, he had become 
known to the readers of our country through his 
contributions to the magazines. In this collection 
of his poems Mr. Moody exercises the severest cen- 
sorship, casting out his earlier productions as hav- 
ing no initiative; but many of them are considered 
by his friends full of exquisite imagery and delicacy 
of conception. The following lines from "Clouds," 
written in his earlier years, while at New Albany, 
Indiana, illustrate this point : 

CLOUDS 

"Outlined against a silver sky 
Where rose-gray flushes swell and lie, 
Behold, what wonder passeth by ! 



LETTERS 259 

Icebergs of color, frozen light, 

Peaks multiform and infinite — 

Olympian uplands, pale gold plains 

Drenched through and through with ruby rains — 

Cathedrals, gateways, obelisks, 

Roofs rounding into moony discs — 

Dawn-dreaming walls, gold-gleaming halls, 

Where all his lordly journey through 

The Sun may hold his festivals. 

O, Soul, that dare look up and say, 

'Who will not walk that Western way ?' 

Be that the sunset, what the day ?" 

The poems of William Vaughn Moody show a 
marvelous range, including a true poetic imagination 
which grasped the unity and development of the 
world : that is, the wholeness of all that we under- 
stand by the terms God, the soul, and nature. This 
imagination was not only penetrative but construct- 
ive. He had a wonderful grasp of theme ranging 
from the simple lyric of "Heart's Wildflower" to 
the trilogy consisting of "The Masque of Judg- 
ment," "The Fire-Bringer" and "The Death of 
Eve" (unfinished). In the poems of this trilogy 
he has used the form of the Greek chorus, and 
while he has shown a perfect acquaintance with 
Greek literature and Greek thought, he has mingled 
the modern Christian philosophy with the ideas of 
Paganism. He discusses the relations of God to 
man, and man to man. 

It is, however, by such lyrics as "Gloucester 



260 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Moors," 'The Daguerreotype," "The Menagerie," 
"Good Friday Night," "The Brute" and "Faded 
Pictures" that William Vaughn Moody will be best 
remembered. In all of these there is a wonderful 
elusive charm, exquisite phrasing, fulness of senti- 
ment without sentimentality, marvelous insight, hu- 
mor and pathos, and a high singing quality. It is 
to his lyric poems that we look for a revelation of 
that self which no author can escape. In "Glouces- 
ter Moors" he has shown a broad humanity in the 
lines : 

"Who has given to me this sweet, 
And given my brother dust to eat? 
And when will his wage come in ?" 

In "The Daguerreotype" the reader knows by in- 
stinct that the poet's own mother and not an im- 
aginary person is the subject of his song. His feel- 
ings in this poem come home to the heart of every 
one. "The Menagerie" shows a wonderful fellow- 
feeling with the brute creation, and Keats's lines at 
the beginning of this sketch are very appropriate. 
Every one appreciates what Moody says about the 
animals : 

". . . They have the coolest way 

Of being something else than what you see :" 

As he looks at them, he feels the blood of his an- 
cient kindred speaking and hears grotesque and 
monstrous voices down the "ocean caves." The 



LETTERS 261 

humor throughout is sympathetic and amusing. In 
"Good Friday Night" he pictures the feelings of the 
irreverent looking upon the ceremonies practiced on 
that occasion, and in the face of the solemnity, ask- 
ing why it was so serious : 

"Would not a brave man gladly die 
For a much smaller thing 
Than to be Christ and king?" 

As he stood there and the Face was revealed to 
him, he recognized the great brotherhood and joined 
in spirit with the worshipers. In his poem, "The 
Brute," the giant force embodied in this name at 
first seems to defy the Creator and would destroy 
the world, but he, too, becomes subject to law, and 
the still small voice assures the world that the Brute 

". . . must bring the good time on, he has no other 
choice." 

and he, also, is a part of the great Whole. "Faded 
Pictures," like the "Daguerreotype," reveals the ten- 
derness of the poet for his mother : 

"But I, well, I left Raphael 
Just to come drink these eyes of hers, 
To think away the stains and blurs 
And make all new again and well." 

Mr. Moody's high conception of the poetic soul 
went beyond the power to express, and he said, "To 
be a poet is more than to write poetry." He was by 



262 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

nature a poet in the sense just mentioned. He saw 
the world in imagery, he talked in metaphor, and 
while he had a deep sense of reality of the things of 
the external world, the things that were not visible 
were quite as real as the things he could see with 
his natural eyes. 

He always cherished the notion of the "eternal 
womanly" and never ceased to look upon woman 
in this high way, whether it be his mother, spoken 
of in "The Daguerreotype," or Eve, in his unfin- 
ished drama, "The Death of Eve," or of the Irish 
girl, of whom he speaks in one of his letters and in 
whom he saw waif, Madonna, and all that goes be- 
tween. In referring to the girls in his classes in 
Chicago he called them "stars." 

He was a Puritan in conscience and a Greek in 
temperament.' He excelled in swimming, skating, 
walking, golf and tennis. He loved the outdoors. 
The writer remembers him on the tennis courts of 
Chicago University, always dressed in immaculate 
white, his face burned red by the sun and contrasting 
with a halo of yellow hair that outlined it. His eyes 
were the most memorable feature of his face. They 
were deep blue and luminous, with a penetrating 
look, and at all times indicated what he thought of a 
question or remark. Almost every one of his friends 
spoke of this. 

It is really in the letters of William Vaughn 
Moody that we get the personal facts that every 



LETTERS 263 

one wishes to know about a writer of such high 
rank. These letters are edited by Daniel Gregory 
Mason and cover a period from 1892 to 1909, the 
year before Mr. Moody's death. He was twenty- 
three years old at the time of the writing of the first 
letter in this volume. The outward facts of his life 
are few. He was born in Spencer, Indiana, in 1869, 
moving to New Albany with his parents when a 
child. He studied in the New Albany High School 
and afterwards taught country school nearby in 
1886. In 1888 he taught at Riverside Academy, 
New York, where he earned his last year's prepara- 
tory work for Harvard. In 1889 he went to Har- 
vard, where after taking his degrees he was made 
instructor in English. In 1895 he began his brilliant 
career as professor of English in Chicago Univer- 
sity. Here he worked for eight years, then resigning 
in order to carry on his writings. He died in 1910, 
in Colorado Springs, a short time after his marriage 
to Mrs. Harriet Brainard, a friend of long stand- 
ing. During the summer periods in his Harvard 
life he made frequent trips abroad, often cycling 
with a friend and deriving much from his journeys. 
His letters speak of his jealousy of the time con- 
sumed in doing his work, and yet no one was ever 
more conscientious than he in the execution of his 
task and in the keeping of his word. He whimsi- 
cally speaks of "putting on blinders, stuffing his 
ears with wax, and strapping himself to the desk." 



264 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

His friend remarks that at least the work done in 
that constricted position was solid and workman- 
like, as any one may see for himself. He mentions 
the far-away years, when he hopes to earn means 
that will make him free from thought of the ne- 
cessities of life. There are mentions of illness in 
his letters, of gratitude to friends, of appreciations 
of honors. Some of his letters are fine samples of 
literary criticism applied to his own writings. One 
finds everywhere a mastery of word values, and it 
was a matter of conscience with William Vaughn 
Moody to avoid hackneyed phrase. Mr. Mason calls 
him a pioneer explorer in language, one who be- 
lieved that the range and scope of expression had 
not reached its limit. His perfect familiarity with 
Greek, German and English literatures greatly aided 
him, not only in word values, but in mastery of 
theme. 

His conscientiousness regarding literary art may 
be shown in his refusal to change his prose drama 
"The Great Divide" into a novel. While he was 
getting five hundred dollars a week for this play, 
before crowded houses, he was offered twenty- five 
thousand dollars and even fifty thousand to change 
it into a novel, but he refused. He said the turning 
of a play into a novel — or vice versa — was a con- 
founding of essentially diverse types of art, and 
therefore a violation of a basic artistic principle, 
and he could not do it. 



LETTERS 265 

It was during this time that he wrote to his friend, 
Gregory Mason, of his long-cherished dreams of 
buying a farm, but they never materialized. The 
other prose drama, "The Faith Healer,'' was not a 
success. 

Modesty was a strong quality in Mr. Moody. All 
success that came to him made no difference in his 
bearing or his feelings, and he was the same "Will" 
to every one familiar enough to call him by that 
name. Another example of his modesty is the sup- 
pression of his initials to a poem on Mr. Gilder, 
published in The Century. Aside from his letters 
to Daniel Gregory Mason, he also wrote to Mrs. 
Mason, to Percy Mackaye, Josephine Preston Pea- 
body, Mrs. Toy and Robert Morss Lovett, with 
whom he made a text-book in rhetoric. Mr. Greg- 
ory offers as a reason for publishing the letters of 
Mr. Moody that they were more than letters; they 
were prose literature, and that in them Mr. Moody 
set free the imagination of the reader. Be that as 
it may, the world would have lost much without this 
volume, which tells in such a charming way so much 
of the personality of this Indiana Torch Bearer in 
Poetry. 

It has been seven years since he died, in the prom- 
ise and strength of his young manhood, and during 
this time estimates made of him as a poet give him 
a place second only to George Woodbury in Amer- 
ica and to Stephen Phillips in England. Margaret 



266 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Sherwood says in the January (1917) Atlantic: 
"The wars of nations cease in time; the war of the 
speech endures. Where are the poets who will sing, 
as William Vaughn Moody sang — a shining excep- 
tion to the fashion of the time — the endless struggle 
of the soul?" 

THE LATER GROUP 

WHO ARE NOW HANDING ON THE TORCH 

Instead of the five Torch Bearers mentioned in 
this group, there really should be a long proces- 
sion, but the reader is referred back to the introduc- 
tion to this chapter. One name, however, not yet 
mentioned is that of Charles Zueblin, born at Pen- 
dleton, Indiana, and now handing on the torch as 
writer and lecturer. Those who are now lighting 
the path and blazing the way in the field of letters 
are assuming no small task, but their readers take 
it for granted that their art is both a pleasure and 
a necessity, which they can but obey. 



GEORGE ADE 

Mr. George Ade distinguished himself during the 
Centennial year for his interest not only in the cele- 
brations over the State, or as chairman of the home- 
coming committee, but also in behalf of the children. 
The following selection was written by him to the 
children of Indiana for the Centennial celebration in 
1916. Mr. Ade, as is elsewhere said, ranks high 



LETTERS 267 

among the dramatists which Indiana has produced, 
and no one has a larger circle of friends in our high 
schools than has Mr. Ade. 

A MESSAGE FROM GEORGE ADE TO THE YOUNG 
PEOPLE OF INDIANA 

I am addressing this story to the young people 
of Indiana. But who are the young people? When 
I was twenty I regarded the man of fifty as a ven- 
erable patriarch. Now that I am fifty I still try 
to classify myself as a youngster, and I am quite 
sure that no one is "old" until he gets well past sev- 
enty. As for the thirty-year-old boys and girls, 
they really belong in the infant class. 

Our state is one hundred years old. If you can 
remember back only six or eight or ten years you 
will be ready to believe that one hundred years is 
a long, long time. You will have to stretch your 
imagination like a new rubber band in order to think 
of the ten spans of ten years each that connect us 
with the dim and far-away year of 1816. 

But fifty years is only one-half of one hundred 
years, and the great Civil War was ended more than 
fifty years ago. Ask some of the old boys and girls 
in your town if the Civil War was fought a long 
time ago and they will reply : "Why, it was only 
yesterday !" 

Some day you may visit Mount Vernon and find 
it a handsome and comfortable residence, looking 
about the same as when George Washington sat on 



268 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

the front porch one hundred and fifty years ago. 
Then you will understand that Indiana is a juvenile 
as compared with Virginia. 

Suppose you sail across the Atlantic to England 
(although this year would not be a very good time 
for taking the sail). You would find in London, 
and all through the green little island, sturdy houses 
made of stone and somewhat gray and mossy with 
age, that have been in use for five hundred years or 
more. 

Then, if you will travel down to Rome, you will 
see in one of the busy streets of that beautiful city 
a building called the Pantheon, which stands, solid 
and secure, just as it stood when St. Paul came to 
teach the new Christian religion nearly two thou- 
sand years ago. 

After that, if you are not afraid to be so far away 
from home, sail across the Mediterranean to Egypt 
and look at temples and tombs and pyramids that 
were centuries old before the Roman builders laid 
the cornerstone of the Pantheon. 

You see, everything in this world is merely "old" 
or "new" when compared with something else. If 
you are ever fortunate enough to sit in the cool 
shades of an Egyptian temple that was two thou- 
sand years old when Christ lay in the manger at 
Bethlehem, you will begin to realize that we are liv- 
ing here in a brand-new country, just starting out. 
The one hundred years of which we are so proud 



LETTERS 269 

is merely the first brief chapter in the history of 
our state. 

Measured by time, we are young. But when you 
count up what has happened since Indiana was ad- 
mitted to the Union, only one hundred years ago, 
you will be glad to know that we are living in the 
busiest and most fortunate period of which there is 
any record. 

This year, in every county of the state, the bands 
will play and the flags will wave and there will be 
speechmaking and parades and moving pictures, and 
the purpose of the whole jubilee will be to remind 
people of what has happened during the last century. 

The young people of the state are to be shown 
in the pictures and parades and pageants what our 
state was like during the pioneer days not so very 
far away. 

My father came out to Indiana from Ohio in 
1853. That was sixty-three years ago, but it might 
have been six centuries ago if we take into account 
the wonderful changes since then. He and my 
mother went by steamboat from Cincinnati to Mad- 
ison, Indiana. At that time there was no railway 
from Cincinnati to Indianapolis. They took a slow 
and poky train at Madison and crawled up to Indi- 
anapolis, which was then a small country town. The 
railway from Indianapolis to Lafayette had just 
been opened for travel. Northwest from Lafayette, 
that region which is now one of the most thriving 



270 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

sections of the whole middle West, was lonesome 
prairie, with occasional patches of timber and the 
houses many miles apart. The Indians had moved 
westward but a few years before. Hunters could 
still find deer and other wild game. There was so 
much land, and most of it seemed so wet and 
swampy, and there were so few settlers coming out 
to claim it, that an acre of ground was worth what- 
ever a man was willing to pay for it and no more. 
Mile after mile the rolling open country was matted 
with high grass, a great variety of bright flowers, 
rushes and cat-tails, while far off on the horizon 
were the clumps of timber marking the course of 
some stream. 

My father and mother went fifty miles out into 
this wilderness and established a little store and 
trading post and waited for the country to develop. 

Suppose my father had met on the trail out across 
the prairie a "genie" or fairy, or some other strange 
creature that we read about in our books, but never 
have the good luck to see. 

Suppose this genie had said to my father: "You 
will live to see this whole desolate region thickly 
populated, so that standing where we are to-day and 
looking in any direction you will discover large 
white houses and fat red barns and whirling wind- 
mills for pumping water and tall towers for the stor- 
ing of grain. The busy towns will be just a few 
miles apart. They will be connected by smooth stone 



LETTERS 271 

roadways, along which vehicles will fly at incredible 
speed, with no horses to pull them. The people in 
one town will talk to the people in a far distant town 
by using wires strung on poles. The houses will be 
lighted by hot wires enclosed in glass bulbs. In al- 
most every home there will be a little box arrange- 
ment in the corner to be wound up so that it will 
sing or reproduce the music of a military band. The 
land you see here will be worth ten times, twenty 
times, fifty times, one hundred times, two hundred 
times what it is worth at this moment. When those 
prosperous times arrive the children will go to school 
in brick and stone palaces instead of log cabins, and 
if they should look out of the window and see a 
man flying through the air, like a chicken hawk, they 
will not be in the least alarmed or frightened." 

My father was a very sensible and level-headed 
man, and I am wondering what he would have said 
to the genie or sprite that would have told him such 
nonsense. My father lived to see fulfilled all of 
the prophecies that would have sounded like dreams 
and moonshine back in 1853. In 1853 no one could 
comprehend what this state would be in 1916. Isn't 
it possible that the young people swarming the state 
in 1916 have no conception of the conditions under 
which the pioneers lived back yonder in the fifties? 
This year, at the centennial celebration, the young 
people will be told the history of their state. They 
will learn something about the courage and the pa- 



272 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

tience of the men and women who came out into 
the wilderness and laid the foundation of this great 
commonwealth. 

ELIZABETH MILLER HACK 

The three books, "The Yoke," "Saul of Tarsus" 
and "The City of Delight" have placed Mrs. Eliza- 
beth Miller Hack in intimate relations with the read- 
ing public of Indiana. The following sketch was 
written by her in answer to a request from the au- 
thor. It is interesting to note how one writer may 
stimulate another to enter the literary field, as Lew 
Wallace did Mrs. Hack. 

HOW I CAME TO WRITE. 

It was planned before I was born that I should 
write. Perhaps that planning had a great deal to 
do with it. I was brought up along a line of home- 
made training and my earliest recollection of any- 
thing at all was some stint or other unalterably lit- 
erary in bent. "Ben-Hur" was a grand new story 
when the first of my education began, and it gained 
that favor at once in my family which it was des- 
tined to enjoy with a whole people in the years to 
come. It is not at all unlikely that the story shaped 
my choice of field without my knowing it. The 
atmosphere of my home was surcharged with Mc- 
Guffey's Readers, even at that time obsolete text- 
books. They were a moral and intellectual standard 
for the children. Shakespeare, until my high-school 



LETTERS 273 

days, was a labyrinth of plots without thoroughfare 
haunted with human oddities, because I had read 
the plays before I was ten years old. McGuffey, 
Byron, Milton and Shakespeare stamped a massive- 
ness on my style before I really had one. 

I am and have always been domestic, although I 
was in doubt whether I was so naturally, or because 
of the traditional inclination to do that which one 
does not like to do, until I settled the matter by ex- 
periment. I loved to cook and sew, but my mother 
would send me from hem-stitching a handkerchief to 
writing "poetry." It was all settled that I should be a 
poet. My efforts at story writing were discouraged 
from two opposite directions. At home they did not 
measure up to my mother's Homeric standard, and at 
school I was often accused of getting "help." But 
after I had read Stevenson's "Black Arrow" I pro- 
duced a story in Old English that my home and 
school critics thought good enough to publish, and 
it went into the High School Annual, with volumi- 
nous, necessary foot-notes. The foot-notes appealed 
strongly to me; I have to resist the temptation to 
use them even to this day. 

Even this bait did not invite me to have more 
of my writings printed. The tradition of rejected 
manuscripts is lacking in my case. When I entered 
Butler College I contributed some verses to the Col- 
legian which appeared in the Christmas issue of 
1897. These came to the hand of General Lew Wal- 



274 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

lace, and on New Year's Day I received a letter 
from him. It was brief, but it contained a single 
line which had more influence on my life than any 
equal number of words has had, before or since. It 
said, "I believe it is in your power to become a 
writer." 

A master had spoken. All my mother's pushing 
and prophecies, up to that moment, I had ascribed 
to mother-love. I had lived in the expectation of 
writing for so long that it had become a matter of 
course, not ambition. But now I suddenly saw that 
my mother had been following a live lead. I ceased 
then and there to regard the future with a soul at 
loaf. I saw a career and I went after it grimly and 
in dead earnest. I traveled; I wrote all the time; 
I studied; I shut myself away from people and 
things, and though I believed I was to write verse, 
I finally produced a novel. I cannot say that I set 
out to write that novel. I developed the story of the 
Exodus as an experiment. I became interested in 
the lives of the people I had created and kept after 
them to see what became of them all. When I 
reached the end of their doings "The Yoke" was 
done and ready for a publisher. 

My work is the product of a life-long preparation, 
but it required a believing mother and a broad- 
minded great man to discover me to myself. 



LETTERS 275 

MEREDITH NICHOLSON 

Many of Mr. Nicholson's friends, who sincerely 
admire his stories and who deeply appreciate the 
high quality of his verse, feel that his rarest literary 
expression is to be found in his essays, and that he 
ranks first among Indiana essayists. Notable exam- 
ples of this are to be found in his articles which 
have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, and in his 
books, "A Hoosier Chronicle" and "The Hoosiers/' 
His sketch of Ben D. House in the volume which 
Mr. Nicholson edited of this poet's verse is a rare 
gem of biographical writing. He is not a recluse; 
he attends public gatherings, presides over meetings, 
introduces speakers, and has even been known to 
serve on a jury. His hospitable home is open to 
friends, who are welcomed by Mrs. Nicholson, a 
most gracious person and a fit companion for a poet 
and a scholar. 

Mr. Nicholson says of himself : 

I was born December 9, 1866, at Crawfordsville, 
Indiana. Of my first home I have no impression, 
but I recall vividly my second, which was set well 
back in a broad yard that sloped rather precipitously 
from the house to a highway known as Lafayette 
pike. 

The Civil War and politics were the subjects I first 
heard discussed by my elders. Farmers and team- 
sters, wearing the old army overcoat, a garment that 



276 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

long survived its military uses, were constantly vis- 
ible in the streets of Crawfordsville. Indiana con- 
tributed two hundred and twenty thousand volun- 
teers for the war between the states, and their valor 
and achievements were impressed upon me by fire- 
side talk. 

My father served four years in the army, first in 
General Lew Wallace's zouave regiment, and later 
for three years in the artillery. I remember very 
well the awe with which I used to gaze upon his 
captain's dress coat, with its brass buttons and epau- 
lets, which hung in a dark closet of our house. 
About the time I learned to read, a trunkful of offi- 
cial papers, copies of reports and rosters of my 
father's battery, and other memorabilia of war days, 
came under my notice, and I pondered them rev- 
erently. 

After our removal to Indianapolis we lived near 
my Grandfather Meredith, a printer, editor and pub- 
lisher who had been a "forty-niner." He was an 
omnivorous reader, and he not only subscribed for 
great numbers of magazines and newspapers, but 
treasured them in his barn loft, where on rainy days 
I was able to follow the course of the war in files of 
Frank Leslie's and Harper's Weekly. 

Although I liked fishing and enjoyed canoeing, 
I never learned to swim. 

I was in the streets a great deal, and present at 
all great occasions. While watching the returns of 



LETTERS 277 

the convention that nominated Hayes, a man came 
out of the telegraph office and hired me for a quar- 
ter to carry messages to the newspaper offices. I 
was kept running until daylight, and on the way 
home with my quarter met my whole family, who 
had set out to look for me. That was, I believe, 
the first money I ever earned. 

My systematic education ended in my first year 
of high school. That was my own fault, and I have 
never ceased to regret it ; but I had found even the 
simplest problems in numbers difficult, and algebra 
was my undoing. If I would not go to school I 
must work, and I entered at once upon various ex- 
periments in the field of labor. For a while I tended 
the soda fountain in a drug store ; at that time I was 
filled with an ambition to be a doctor, but that passed 
quickly. My grandfather and one of my uncles were 
printers, and I next felt the call of the types. I 
worked in a small printing office for a while, but 
as the proprietor carried a stock of periodicals in 
the front of his shop, I spent most of my time wait- 
ing on customers and reading story papers. I did 
learn the cases, however, and when there was pi to 
sort I was allowed to distribute it. 

I soon moved to a large printing concern, still 
with the idea of learning the compositor's trade, but 
for some reason was pressed into service as an er- 
rand boy in the counting room, and never added to 
the slight knowledge I had already gained of the 



278 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

art preservative. If algebra had proved forbidding, 
a heavy wheelbarrow on which I was expected to 
trundle packages all over the business district im- 
posed a heavy pennance for my short-sightedness 
in leaving school. 

I saw nothing ahead of me here, and therefore 
began casting about for other employment. A sten- 
ographer hired me to tend office and run errands, 
and I employed my leisure in learning shorthand. 
Within a year my employer, an official court re- 
porter, was dictating to me from his notes. Stenog- 
raphers were not common, and I soon had all the 
work I could do. My ignorance weighed heavily 
upon me, and at seventeen I began to read prodig- 
iously. Encounters with Latin phrases in transcrib- 
ing court proceedings roused my curiosity as to 
languages. I purchased a Latin grammar in a sec- 
ond-hand store and worked at it zealously, although 
I confess with shame that all my reading of Latin 
authors was done with the aid of translations. A 
little later I studied French and Italian in the same 
fashion, without a teacher, but with better success. 

Emerson and Thoreau were my favorite authors, 
and I recall vividly the joy I found in "Early Spring 
in Massachusetts." At that time I began to write 
sketches, stories and verses, some of which were 
printed in the local weekly literary papers — a type 
of journal that was destroyed by the increasing pop- 
ularity of the Sunday newspaper. My next move 



LETTERS 279 

was to the office of one of the best law firms of In- 
diana. These new employers were cultivated men 
in the broadest sense, who took the deepest interest 
in public affairs and were lovers of literature. They 
never knew how much I learned from them. 

The law seemed to me at that period to be the 
finest thing in the world. In writing pleadings from 
dictation I gathered a pretty good idea of legal pro- 
cedure and formula. I spent a year and a half in 
that office, and then moved to the law office of Will- 
iam Wallace, a brother of General Lew Wallace. I 
was now a competent stenographer, and was able 
to perform a variety of services in addition to writ- 
ing letters and pleadings. I read law books, undi- 
rected and fitfully. 

While in that office I scribbled constantly — verses 
mainly, but I wrote a short story that received a 
ten-dollar prize from a Chicago newspaper and sold 
a poem to a New York weekly paper for three dol- 
lars. I was now eighteen and hardly a boy any 
longer; but in spite of my occupations I managed 
to cling to my youthful recreations. 

Literature was much to the fore in the Indiana 
of my boyhood and youth. Edward Eggleston, Lew 
Wallace, James Whitcomb Riley and Maurice 
Thompson had given wide advertisement to Hoosier 
letters. I recall half a dozen lesser bards — two of 
whom wore cloaks and looked the part — to be seen 
any day in our capital. Mr. Riley sought me out 



280 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

in the law office one memorable day to exhibit a 
poem of mine that had been quoted in the journal 
of a neighboring city along with one of his own — 
a kind act that began a friendship that still endures. 
My ties with Crawfordsville still remained close, as 
they do to this day, and it seemed to me indeed — 
what it used to be called — the Hoosier Athens. Gen- 
eral and Mrs. Wallace, the Thompsons and Mary 
and Caroline Krout — two sisters who have written 
poems, novels and books of travel — all lived in 
Crawfordsville, and it was perhaps pardonable if 
I assumed that my birth in a community that in- 
cluded so many geniuses brought me within range 
of the reflected light of their reputation. I read 
every book I heard any one mention, and as I was 
fortunate in my acquaintances, I dipped into much 
good literature. Poetry interested me particularly 
and I wrote it in large quantities. 

One of our local bards, Ben D. House, a Vermont 
soldier, was a picturesque figure in our streets. He 
affected a semi-military dress, and talked much of 
his adventures with Custer's cavalry. His employ- 
ments — as journalist and government clerk — were 
fitful and he always seemed enveloped in a spacious 
leisure. I was his devoted slave and used to carry 
him my verses for criticism. Incidentally he read 
me his own poems. Sometimes when we met in the 
street he would draw me into a hallway and pull a 



LETTERS 281 

sonnet from his pocket and read it with fine elocu- 
tionary effect. 

Myron Reed, a Presbyterian minister, born in 
New Hampshire, was another man who attracted 
me strongly in my youth. He, too, had been a sol- 
dier, a captain in a cavalry regiment. He was as 
little like the traditional clergyman as possible. On 
Sundays, from the pulpit of the First Presbyterian 
Church, he read a short essay, frankly modeled on 
Emerson's direct, rifle-shot style. His sermons were 
rich in allusion. Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, 
Emerson and Thoreau figured much in his dis- 
courses, and the first time I heard Whitman's "O 
Captain ! My Captain !" was when Reed read it. 

Thus my earliest impressions are of men who 
were either soldiers or writers, or both. I had my 
own dream of West Point and a military career, 
but my deficiencies in mathematics effectually dis- 
posed of those ambitions. Of all the Indiana writers 
who have risen in my day I have known best the 
Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley. He was just 
coming into fame when, as a youth, I began my 
own faint tinklings in verse, and he was constantly 
the target of my admiration in our thoroughfares. 
No other writer has so faithfully recorded the Hoo- 
sier speech and the local customs and spirit. He 
is the most amusing man I have ever known, the 
most delightful comrade and the most generous 
friend. 



282 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Mine was not much of a boyhood, but, all in all, 
I had a very good time and I look back with no 
feeling that I would change it if I could. 

Courtesy of the Youth's Companion. 



ANNA NICHOLAS 

Miss Anna Nicholas has for over a quarter of a 
century been associated with editorial newspaper 
work. She knows all of its phases and has in her 
mind to-day motifs for hundreds of stories which 
she hopes some time to write. She is known in 
Indiana and widely outside of the state as a short 
story writer as well as an editorial writer. Her 
"Idyl of the Wabash" has won for her great praise. 
The charm of reality which the following sketch 
gives is only a hint of the joys that are intermingled 
with the experiences in journalism. 

THE JOYS OF JOURNALISM 

To be asked to write something about the joys 
of journalism was to experience a shock. I had 
been in newspaper work for many years, but what 
were its joys? They did not at once suggest them- 
selves. It seemed likely that I should be compelled 
to model my essay on that classic statement, "There 
are no snakes in Ireland," and say, "There are no 
joys in journalism." 

The alternative presented itself of plagiarizing 



LETTERS 283 

Elbert Hubbard, who once published a book enti- 
tled "Silence," which contained only blank pages, 
and of placing my autograph at the bottom of a 
fair white sheet of paper. 

Consultation with office associates brought no 
light. The very mention of the subject excited hi- 
larity. "Working nineteen hours a day — is that a 
joy?" one asked. "Getting the best part of your 
stuff cut out before it goes to the printer — is that 
a delight?" another wanted to know. "To have the 
fellow who 'always knows what you write,' 'couldn't 
fool him on your style,' pick out your very choicest 
effort and credit it to a member of the staff that 
you know couldn't come within a mile of you — 
there's nothing gay about that," the feature writer 
complained. 

"It isn't as bad as to be suspected of having writ- 
ten something that you consider about the worst 
thing that ever found its way into the paper," an 
editorial writer added. 

An innocent bystander joined in the conference. 
"At least," he said, "you have the great satisfaction 
of putting your thoughts and convictions into print, 
of expressing yourselves, of knowing that you have 
a wide influence for good." 

Reporters and editorial and special writers looked 
at the stranger with pity, and in silence turned to- 
ward their type-machines, their lips moving, though 
not in prayer. Muttered words were heard — "speak 



284 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

our minds !" "express ourselves !" "influence !" "us I" 
"The innocent stranger is a joy," called out the po- 
litical reporter, and suddenly there was a chorus of 
laughter. 

But what are the real joys? There are, I re- 
flected, the ingenuous correspondents and would-be 
contributors who unconsciously bring gleams of 
brightness into the editorial life : the man who gives 
the "inclemency" of his health as an excuse for not 
writing sooner — on a matter important to himself 
only ; the earnest citizen who is concerned about the 
"stradegy" of a political warfare, and says the old 
and new world will stand "agashed" at it; the New 
England rhymester who sends verses in which "um- 
brella" is made to rhyme with "sell her" and "detain 
her" with "kleptomania" ; the brazen person who 
sends as his own, Milton's tribute to his "late es- 
poused saint" ; another who offers as original 
Moore's "Oft in the Stilly Night," and yet another 
who signs his name to Charles Henry Luders's beau- 
tiful poem, "The Four Winds." 

There is the professional editorial writer whose 
letterheads bear the engraved legend, "Soul-Stuff 
Editorials." Writers who praise their own wares 
are numerous. "It is certainly a good and beautiful 
poem," writes one, "and if you don't accept it, I 
would like to be advised as to the reasons why." 
Another, who wishes to be a regular contributor, 
says, "If you can use my poetry or prose, I would 



LETTERS 285 

be glad to serve you, no matter what subject you 
want me to write on — wheather comic, relidgious 
or sentimentle. Just send me the subject you want 
wrote on and how many words and I will try to 
remain yours respectfully," etc. Another, equally 
confident of his powers, says : 71 can give you sat- 
isfaction along any line — as reporter or author of 
the most finished poem or story." 

And the poetry they send! One was moved to 
set down in many stanzas words of praise for Gen- 
eral Henry W. Lawton, whom he called "Larton." 

"There never was a braver, 
Ner a fearlesser ner a honester 

man than was this Generil Larton, 
Who led his men so grand." 

There was the spring poet who sang thus : 

"Oh, Riley loves his immortal June 
With heaps of pleasure and gratitude, 

And we should love our blooming May, 
With hearts of similar attitude." 

Another sings in his opening lines : 

"I wandered out one lovely night, 
Barefooted were my feet." 

One could only hope that it was a summer night. 

So they come, bringing smiles to the busy editor 
as he reads and casts them aside or files them with 



286 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

his collection of curios for future reference. But 
these are only surface things. What are the joys, 
the real joys, of journalism? 

To placate the citizen who is indignant because 
of something the paper has printed, is not a joy, 
especially as this typical citizen, always ready to 
criticize, forgets to praise published utterances 
known to be in line with his opinions. Doubtless 
virtue is its own reward, but the hard-working jour- 
nalist does not find the consciousness of good work 
done, always an inspiration to something better. It 
is not to be classed as an active joy. 

To do his work under the shadow of anonymity 
is not a source of unalloyed pleasure for the jour- 
nalist. The material prizes and rewards of his call- 
ing are not as numerous or as great as those of 
other professions. Fame seldom comes to him. He 
works harder and more continuously than most men. 
Because of the very nature of his work, he forgets 
yesterday and takes no thought of the morrow, but 
lives in to-day alone. He grumbles about his dis- 
advantages, and yet he would not leave his profes- 
sion. What is the charm? 

He knows that in no other calling could he asso- 
ciate with men and women so keen-witted, so broad- 
minded, so active-minded and wide-awake to the 
world's affairs — men and women a trifle cynical, 
perhaps, because they have learned to know their 
fellow beings on their seamy side, but kindly, tol- 



LETTERS 287 

erant and charitable for all that; men and women 
of conscience and high principle, who throughout 
their career have used their pens to promote all 
good causes as they have seen them and have per- 
formed their part as they were able in upbuilding 
the community; men and women of whom, when 
they finally lay down their work, it can truthfully 
be said that they have done what they could. 

Newspaper people like their profession; it fas- 
cinates them to the end, but they can scarcely say 
why. What, indeed, are the true joys of journal- 
ism? 

BOOTH TARKINGTON 

The prominent place occupied by Booth Tarking- 
ton as dramatist and novelist and as an exponent of 
realism, which has been so greatly praised by Will- 
iam Dean Howells in his estimate of "The Tur- 
moil," requires little to be said. The following rec- 
ollections furnished by a former teacher of Mr. 
Tarkington may be of interest in showing how his 
talent appeared in her school. 

She remembers him as a slender lad of fourteen, 
with brown eyes in which there was always a merry 
twinkle, with hands always busy in illuminating the 
margins of his text-books. He showed at that time 
a keen sense of humor, a just appreciation of his 
schoolmates, and exercised withal a critical judg- 
ment toward his teacher and the school. This 



288 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

teacher has often said that had young Tarkington 
answered to the call of the brush instead of the 
call of the pen he would have been a famous illus- 
trator. As an example of her opinion, she tells of 
three creditable crayon sketches handed in by Booth, 
in the study of "Snowbound." The first was a 
calm Quaker face, looking out from a dainty cap. 
Under it was written 

Our Mother 

"While she turned her wheel, 

Or run the new-knit stocking-heel." 

The second sketch was also a Quaker face, with 
firm-set mouth and decided expression. Under it 
was written Qur Father 

"A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
Our father wasted. 'Boys, a path !' " 

The third picture was an easy-going face, with three 
little spikes of hair pointing straight up from the 
crown of his head. Under this was written 

Our Uncle 

. . . "Innocent of books, 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks." 

These pictures, with Booth's understanding of the 
poem, gave the teacher great pleasure, and she ac- 
knowledged to have laid away the sketches with 



LETTERS 289 

great care, saying to herself, "It may be that some 
day my name will go down to posterity as the 
teacher of the great illustrator, Booth Tarkington." 
Another illustration of how the tendencies of 
youth picture the practices of manhood, spiritually 
as well as physically, was given in connection with 
Booth's writing and standards, even as a boy. In 
the old days when paraphrasing was a part of the 
English course, but which, thanks to educational ad- 
vance, is now no more, pupils were assigned poems, 
the meaning of which they were to express in their 
own language. It was on Friday afternoon. Many 
of the children had given their exercises, with va- 
rious comments from their mates, when Booth's 
turn came. He had chosen the "Spider and the Fly." 
He rose with great dignity, made an admirable 
translation, and sat down without mentioning the 
last stanza, which contained the moral. There was a 
silence in the room. Finally a timid little girl in a 
back seat tremblingly raised her hand, and upon rec- 
ognition by the teacher rose and said, "Why, he ain't 
told the moral." Another silence ensued. Then 
Booth arose with fiery eye and said in a manly way, 
"If the moral is not apparent all the way along, I 
shall never tack it on at the end," and a look of as- 
tonishment passed over the school to think that a 
pupil of fourteen had dared to set up his judgment 
against an author's on a printed page. This lad had 
by insight shown and announced one of the great 



290 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

principles of the fiction which he is to-day writing, 
that characters in stories should speak for themselves 
and not be moralizing puppets of the author. Booth 
Tarkington also showed in this exercise another ele- 
ment of artistic writing; that is, that high art is 
tempered and permits of no excrescences, but goes 
straight home to the mark, and that it is as impor- 
tant to know what to leave out as it is what to put in. 
The old methods did not hurt Booth Tarkington, 
because he had the courage and the good sense to 
take the initiative and assert what were to him ar- 
tistic convictions. May he long live to hand on the 
torch of letters! 



CHAPTER X 

The Centennial Torch 

THE Centennial Torch of Indiana's statehood 
anniversary was lighted in 1915 when Gover- 
nor Ralston appointed an historic commission con- 
sisting of the following persons : Governor Samuel 
M. Ralston (ex-officio member), Frank B. Wynn, 
Harlow Lindley, James A. Woodburn, Charles W. 
Moores, Samuel M. Foster, John Cavanaugh, Char- 
ity Dye and Lew M. O'Bannon. The duties of this 
commission were outlined by the governor: they 
were to arouse in the people of Indiana a desire to 
make the Statehood Centennial educative, patriotic, 
historic. That this was accomplished in some de- 
gree is well known to the citizens of the state. Lec- 
tures were given, letters were sent out, conferences 
were held, the commission issued bulletins upon pag- 
eantry, upon ways and means of procedure, and 
chairmen were appointed in every county to organ- 
ize and give every community a chance to express 
itself in its own way in observing the Centennial 
celebration. 

The schools took up the work in great earnest. 
They learned community history by interviewing the 
pioneers, interested themselves in exhibits of colo- 
nial material, "kodaked" the birds and scenic spots, 

291 



292 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

made hundreds of maps and posters, filled scrap- 
books from the passing daily centennial material and 
became grounded in some of the fundamentals of 
Indiana history. One interesting feature of school 
work was the "state-wide letter exchange" which 
enabled students in different localities to become ac- 
quainted with the history and environment of those 
in other parts of the state. The children wrote plays 
and enacted them in their respective schools. They 
composed music and sang in great choruses, and 
thousands of them marched the streets, waving the 
American flag. The writer saw ten thousand chil- 
dren engaged in the flag drill, which was symbolic, 
beautiful and touching. 

Notable pageants were presented at Bloomington, 
Corydon and Indianapolis as parts of the great Indi- 
ana pageant. Richmond, Fort Wayne, South Bend, 
Aurora, Crawfordsville, Brookville, and nearly every 
county seat in Indiana enacted a worthy pageant, 
each of which was marked by the characteristics of 
its own past. 

The crowning celebration, on December 11, 
marked the formal admission of Indiana to the 
Union in 1816. This was a great occasion. The 
Third Infantry of the State's National Guard, fresh 
from the Mexican border, led by Colonel Aubrey 
L. Kuhlman of Auburn, was welcomed home. 
Governor Ralston presided with his usual patriotic 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 293 

enthusiasm. An address was made by James A. 
Woodburn, head of the History Department of In- 
diana University, and an ode was read by William 
Dudley Foulke. 

Not the least of the torches lighted by the Cen- 
tennial spirit was the Torch of Giving. This was 
especially noticeable in the presentation of parks. 
The late Harry E. Milligan presented to Craw- 
fordsville a tract now known as the Milligan Park. 
The presentation to Indianapolis of the park by 
John H. Holliday and his wife has been previously 
referred to. 

The state is especially indebted to Mr. Richard 
Lieber, chairman of the State Park Association, for 
the preservation of Turkey Run, which has many 
of the primitive walnut trees of Indiana, and which 
is considered one of the most beautiful scenic spots 
in the state. The people of Owen County were also 
generous in the sale of land to the state for its park 
system. The spirit of giving land for park purposes, 
engendered by the Centennial movement, is still at 
work, and many other gifts to the state are expected 
from persons in different localities. 

W. C. Woodward, Director of the Centennial 
Commission, was asked to state what he deemed 
among the most important events of the Centennial 
year. He says : 

"You asked for a list of Centennial gifts and the 



294 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

donors. I presume you mean in general terms only, 
for I have no lists over here in any detail. In a 
general way, I should speak first of the public gifts 
towards the two Centennial park projects — those of 
Turkey Run and McCormick's Creek. Under gifts 
of a personal memorial nature I should mention the 
placing of the stone by the citizens of Tipton in 
honor of General John Tipton, a similar recognition 
of the Milroy family at Delphi, and the memorial 
marking the old Lincoln home at Lincoln City by 
Spencer County. Illustrating gifts of a more phil- 
anthropic nature are the Centennial Memorial hos- 
pitals erected by Portland and Connersville. 

"But it seems to me there are gifts more impor- 
tant than any of these mentioned. I refer to the 
sacrifice of time and labor so zealously and enthusi- 
astically and generously given by people all over 
Indiana toward seeing that the Centennial of their 
state was truly observed. As I look back over the 
work, this is the thing that impresses me more and 
more. Take, for instance, such noble, indefatigable 
and unconquerable souls as Mrs. Dooley of Rock- 
ville, Miss Newsom of Columbus, Miss Williams of 
Huntingburg, Mrs. Baumgartner and Mrs. Ehrman 
of Rockport, Mr. De la Hunt of Cannellton, Mrs. 
Buckley of Delphi, Mrs. Mathews of Tipton, Mrs. 
Albion Fellows Bacon of Evansville, L. N. Hines of 
Crawfordsville, Ben F. McKey of Lebanon, J. M. 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 295 

Scudder of Huntington, J. C. Shirk of Brookville, 
Mrs. Mac. Stoops of Petersburg, and many others 
who come thronging to my mind. The point is that 
these people have not merely given money, but them- 
selves. Among these, especially, I should like to 
call attention to our native pageant writers, whose 
offerings were truly labors of patriotism and love. 
These, it seems to me, are the priceless gifts after 
all, far beyond mere money." 

The author would like to make honorable men- 
tion of the services of Dr. Frank B. Wynn, who 
began to agitate the importance of the Centennial 
Celebration two years before the commission was 
formed, and no man in Indiana gave more devoted 
service than he to the Centennial observance. 

The forming of county historical societies during 
1916 will be of lasting benefit to the state. The 
dedication of buildings, and the unveiling of tablets, 
and the placing of fountains, all have repeated the 
date 1916 for posterity. 

One of the most notable memorial tablets unveiled 
during the Centennial year of 1916 was that dedi- 
cated to the memory of James Biddy, in Shortridge 
High School. This was the work of a local artist and 
contained a likeness of Mr. Biddy with a suitable 
tribute. This man was janitor of Shortridge High 
School for over thirty years. He was a gentleman 
of the highest rank in manners, bearing and lofty- 



296 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

mindedness. As an employe he fulfilled his duty 
to the highest measure, thinking not of himself; his 
influence for good was lasting, and no boy would 
speak an unclean word or do a mean act in his pres- 
ence. He was looked upon by the faculty as a 
friend, and shared in the sorrows and rejoicings of 
that body, always taking part. This Centennial trib- 
ute is the most democratic and carries with it the 
highest respect for labor that came to the writer's 
notice during the Centennial year. Credit for this 
is due to Miss Laura Donnan, teacher of History 
in the school, and one who, by her loyal service to 
the youth under her and to the country, is cherished 
all over Indiana by those who have gone forth from 
her influence. 

Indiana has taken a new life at the beginning of 
her second centenary. Her legislature in 1917 
passed three memorable enactments, a bill granting 
a constitutional convention, state-wide prohibition, 
and partial suffrage for women. 

All of the work commenced in the Centennial year 
is not yet finished. The park movement is almost at 
its beginning. The placing of a memorial to the 
Pioneer Mother of Indiana, commenced in the spring 
of 1916, is yet to be accomplished. An association 
for this purpose has been incorporated and all citi- 
zens of Indiana have an opportunity to honor the 
pioneer mother, who helped to build the common- 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 297 

wealth, sacrificed her sons on the altar of freedom, 
endured hardships and kept the hearthstone of the 
home sacred. Every one looks back somewhere to a 
pioneer mother from whom the blood in his own 
veins has never run cold. The following will serve 
to suggest something of the spirit in which the Cen- 
tennial work was taken up over the state. 



WHAT THE CHILDREN WERE SAYING 

IN THE STATE-WIDE LETTER 

EXCHANGE IN 1916 

-p. « 1 t- • j CORYDON, IND. 

Dear School b nend : 

I am a little girl twelve years old. I live in the 
country about three miles from Corydon. Miss 
Alice Williams is my school teacher. 

The old State Capitol is at Corydon. It is con- 
structed of limestone rock. The walls are very thick 
and will last for ages. The Constitutional Elm is 
also at Corydon. It is a very large tree and is a 
very pretty shape. It is now beginning to die, so 
the Hoosier Elm Chapter of the Daughters of the 
American Revolution have placed under the tree a 
monument — a large limestone bowlder containing a 
brass plate with proper inscription concerning the 
historic old elm. 

The building which was used as offices by Indi- 



298 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

ana's auditor and treasurer when the capital was at 
Corydon is also standing. It is constructed of brick 
and is now owned and occupied as a residence. The 
old Capitol Hotel is also standing. It is one and a 
half miles from Corydon and built of limestone. It 
is also owned and occupied as a residence. 

I think it would be very nice if you could come to 
Corydon May 13, 1916, to the centennial celebra- 
tion. I should be glad to have you as my guest. I 
shall be glad to hear from you at any time. 

Respectfully, 
Sarah Alice Markel. 

Mauckport, Ind. 
Master John C. Fulling, Indianapolis, Ind. : 

Dear Sir — I received your very interesting letter 
some time ago and was very much pleased with it. 
I am writing this in order that I may give you a 
more detailed account of the burning of the steamer 
"The Alice Dean," by Gen. John Morgan. 

General Morgan reached Brandenburg, Ky., July 
8, 1863, and, being hard pressed by General Hob- 
son, hastened to cross the Ohio river into Indiana. 
The Alice Dean, one of the largest and finest boats 
running on the Ohio river, was on her way up when 
she was pressed into service by General Morgan 
and used as a transport to carry his men across into 
Indiana. After crossing, the Alice Dean was fired 
and set adrift. When she had drifted about a mile 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 299 

she was grounded at the mouth of Buck Creek, one 
mile east of Mauckport, and there she burned to the 
water's edge. The hull of this boat still lies where 
it sank fifty-two years ago. In very low water the 
whole of the hull comes to view and is visited by 
a great many people, who carry away parts of it for 
relics. I am going to send you a piece of one of 
the timbers for a keepsake and a reminder of Mor- 
gan's raid. 

The Alice Dean was about three hundred feet 
long and was owned and commanded by Captain 
Pepper, who, after the loss of his boat, removed to 
Texas, where he lived for many years. The boat 
was valued at sixty thousand dollars and represented 
the entire fortune of Captain Pepper. In appear- 
ance the captain was a very imposing figure. He 
was a very tall man with long white beard and was 
a gentleman of the "old school." In the last years 
of his life he was totally blind. 

Answer soon. Yours truly, 

Francis Hardin. 

My Dear Miss : Vincennes, Ind. 

I live in the suburbs of old Vincennes. I go to 
the Vincennes consolidated school No. 1. 

I will tell the story of our first flag as my 
teacher told it to me. It was made by Mme. Godare. 
General Clark had marched from Kaskaskia and 
captured Vincennes. He wanted a flag. Mme. 



300 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Godare, a patriotic French lady, said she would 
make it for him. Clark knew there were thirteen 
colonies. He said, "We must have thirteen stripes." 
Mme. Godare took red and green material and made 
a flag of thirteen stripes, without a field of stars. 

We have a flag made by Mme. Godare's great- 
granddaughter. It is just like the first American 
flag that waved over the great Northwest Territory. 

Very truly, 

Clara Morgan. 

Dear Indiana Friend: Logansport, Ind. 

Did you know that our beautiful city is named for 
Captain Logan, a Shawnee Indian? 

He was a handsome Indian. He was six feet tall. 
He did so many brave deeds for the white people 
that they all learned to love him. 

When war broke out in 1812 he joined the Ameri- 
can army. One day Captain Logan took twenty-five 
women "and children from Fort Wayne to Piqua, 
Ohio. He took them through the forests safely. 
There were very many hostile Indians in the forests. 
But they did not shoot a single person. But I sup- 
pose they would if they had had a chance. 

Once when Logan and a few of his friends were 
out finding what the Indians were doing, some cruel 
Indians shot him. He died three days after. 

To show that the white men loved him, they had 
a military funeral. One day a number of early set- 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 301 

tiers sat under an elm tree to decide upon a name 
for the new city. Gen. John Tipton said, "Let's 
give our city a name that means 'Mouth of the Eel'." 
But Hugh B. McKeen said, "No, let's name our city 
after Captain Logan." So they all said "Yes," and 
they added the word port to fill out the name. So 
our beautiful city is named Logansport. Good-by. 

Louise Hoffman, 

4B Grade. 

Greenville, Ind. 
My Dear Friend or Enemy : 

I don't want to write to you, but my cruel mis- 
tress compels me to do so at the point of zero. She 
says to tell you something of the interesting persons, 
places or things in this part of the world. First I 
must tell in what part of the world I live, for 
you certainly never heard of Greenville. It is on 
the eighty-sixth degree of latitude west. 

This place is on the pike now part of the Dixie 
highway and the old Vincennes road, which formerly 
went from New Albany to Vincennes. These roads 
go over the "Knobs" above the Ohio. Bayard Tay- 
lor said of this part of the country that it was one 
of the most beautiful he had ever seen. Both roads 
are in some places cut out of the solid cliff of rock. 
Sometimes the ravine is three hundred feet deep and 
the hill one hundred feet higher above. In summer 
both hills and valleys are green. In the fall, while 



302 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

the leaves in the valley are still green, the leaves on 
the hillside above are beginning to turn. It is cer- 
tainly a beautiful sight! 

There is a place on the old Vincennes road from 
which we can see Louisville in the distance. In this 
place the road is built up over the valley and the 
valley is narrow and straight and only on a clear 
day can you see Louisville at the foot of it. 

Time's up. Hope you don't have to reply in re- 
turn for this. Yours truly, 

Charles Norman. 



THE INDIANA CENTENNIAL MEDAL 

Executed by Janet Scudder 

The cuts of the Indiana Centennial Medal on the 
frontispiece were furnished by Mr. Carl Lieber, 
a member of the medal committee, of which Mr. 
Charles Moores of the historic commission was 
chairman. Along with Mr. Moores, Mr. Lee Burns 
and Mr. Lieber gave untiring devotion toward mak- 
ing the medal what it should be. There was a 
smaller medal reproduced from the original for the 
school children at less expense. This smaller one 
was considered by Miss Scudder in every way equal 
to the larger one. (For details about Miss Scudder 
see Chapter VIII.) 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 303 

CENTENNIAL ODE 

By William Dudley Foulke 
William Dudley Foulke is now handing on the 
torch of letters in Indiana. He is a poet of high 
order and an admirable writer of prose. He has 
already been spoken of as biographer of Oliver 
Perry Morton and as Civil Service Reformer. 

If thou wouldst fathom Indiana's heart 
Think not to find it in the passing crowd, 
The hum of industry, the bustling mart, 
The great assemblies' voices clamoring loud. 
But come with me and sit beside the board 
At some old-fashioned farmstead, watch the team 
Heavy with harvest, toiling through the ford 
Or lie within the forest shade and dream, 
With Riley's "Pipes of Pan" to charm and cheer— 
His voice grew silent on this hundredth year ! 

Dear State, thy homelier charms are still the best 
Thy peaceful landscapes filled with joy and rest. 

From the abyss of the tumultuous street 

The roar of the great city and its glare 

The multitude whose feverish pulses beat 

With evanescent hopes of wild despair, 

In my young manhood did I come to thee 

And found the balm of thy serenity. 

And evermore, threading thy quiet ways, 

Reclining by thy hesitating streams 

Where sheltering sycamores hid me from the blaze 

Of summer suns— half winking, half in dreams 



304 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

I did perceive thy sylvan beauty grow 
Into my soul until I came to know 
I loved thee, that thy heart had answered mine. 
And all the more now that my days decline, 
Thy spirit broods upon me. Not the sea 
Nor the unutterable majesty 
Of Alpine peak nor the white foam and spray 
Of glittering cataract can so win their way 
Into my heart. I have dwelt with thee too long 
To love another while thy beech trees bend 
Their lowly limbs to greet me as a friend 
And take from me the tribute of a song. 

A hundred years with fluttering wings have flown 
Since underneath the elm at Corydon 
In homespun garb our farmer pioneers 
Fashioned our state to face the coming years. 
A wilderness the spot where now we meet, 
And where the multitude with bustling feet 
Are hurrying past, there lay the silent track 
Trod by the stealthy savage or the pack 
Of ravening wolves and on the slimy green 
Of the still marsh, gaunt fever stalked unseen. 
And then a race of freemen, simple, strong, 
Bearing the implements that settlers need, 
The rifle, ax and plow, began a long, 
Hard struggle, felled the forest, sowed the seed 
And planted in the wilderness, the state 
Whose prosperous fruitage now we celebrate. 
Roll back the years my soul, and let us stand 
In the first furrows of the new tilled land 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 305 

And think the things the adventurous settler thought 

And learn again the lesson he was taught. 

He knew not, as we know, the steed of steam, 

The exploding vapor and the electric stream, 

Nor with them scoured the earth, explored the sea, 

Or soared through heaven's wide immensity ; 

But each man bore his rifle primed and bright, 

Ready for instant use in sudden fight, 

And better knew — (for many a pioneer 

Who trod the wild and built his cabin here 

Had battled in the war that made us free) — 

Far better knew the worth of liberty, 

He saw far clearer than we see to-day 

That freedom's gracious presence will not stay 

With those who fare not for her, to give all, 

Life, kindred, hope and fortune at her call ! 

Nay, just before the founding of our state 

Our country had thrown down the gage to fate, 

Defied the British empire to the test 

Of arms because our sailors she impressed 

And searched our ships. Would we do that to-day ? 

Has something of our courage slipped away ? 

What has the century brought us ? Plenteous stores, 

Bountiful harvests carried from our doors, 

Fair cities, stately piles and busy marts, 

The factory's whirring wheels and shuttles loud, 

And ample farms, wide lawns and mansions proud, 

And learning's gifts of science and the arts. 

But shall we measure by the glint of old 

The treasures that these hundred years enfold? 

Have we as high an aim, as strong a heart, 

Are we resolved to play as brave a part 



306 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

As those who framed the fabric of our state 

To liberty and honor dedicate? 

Or are we strolling now in softer ways 

On gentler paths in more degenerate days ? 

Would we not fain recoil from care and strife 

And live in ease a smooth and prosperous life ? 



This hundredth year dawned on a raging world — 

A world submerged beneath a sea of blood 

With shafts of fury from the heavens hurled, 

And we — an island girdled by the flood 

Which still doth rise and still doth draw more near, 

We hear the cries of universal woe 

And cheeks are wet with rain of many a tear 

How close the eddies of destruction flow ! 

Let us be wise in time and raise a dike 

That shall be high and strong to stay the tide ; 

Quick! Let us arm ere the invader strike 

And fill the land with devastation wide 

Thus only may we keep our country free 

And guard for all mankind sweet liberty. 

From Runnymede to Yorktown, toilsome, slow, 
Freedom was wrested from the clutch of kings 
And forth among the nations did she go 
Scattering wide her boon of better things. 
New life upon the icy plain was spread 
The spring had broken on an Arctic night, 
Hope smiled upon the disinherited, 
And everywhere the world moved on to light. 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 307 

But from the lair where slept the power of arms 
There crawls once more the grim philosophy 
That Might alone is Right, though liberty 
Must perish in the clash of war's alarms. 
We too shall lose our birthright if she fall 
And every race become some conqueror's thrall. 

We will not have it so. And yet to stay 
The invader's steps we too may have to bare 
The glittering sword and stand and bar his way. 
Awaken then my country ! Rise. Prepare ! 
We call on thee by every sacred name 
That shines from out the annals of thy past, 
Train all thy sons to keep thee from the shame 
That would enslave the world in thralldom vast 
For we must still be worthy of our sires, 
And with stout hearts must guard the treasure well 
They left us and keep bright the holy fires 
They lighted from this stifling smoke of hell. 

In days that are to come the world may find 

Some better way than war. A mightier state 

To liberty and order consecrate 

May spread its aegis over all mankind. 

Our federated nation points the way — 

The State and then the Union. Deep our love 

For Indiana yet it should not stay 

Confined within her boundaries — One above — 

The nation claims our first allegiance ; far 

Deeper than homage to a single star 

Our reverence for the constellation bright 

That sheds on all the world fair freedom's light. 



308 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

The brightest lines in Indiana's story 

Are those that proudly tell 

How swift her sons, when duty called — not glory — 

Leaped forth to battle, and how hard and well 

They fought, till victory came. I see our great 

War Governor, epic figure of our state, 

Sending them forth and greeting their return 

And all the pulses of my being burn 

At the proud memory. Not for thy sake, 

O Indiana, did thy children make 

Their offerings of fortune and of life, 

And risk their all in the uncertain strife, 

But for the Union and for liberty ! 

And so among the nations may it be. 

The future holdeth higher things in store 

Than those our halting fancy may explore. 

On some bright day the slow advancing hours 

May bring the world a league of sovereign powers 

Wherein the rights of single nations bend 

To the just will of all, and the decrees 

Of some great world tribunal are the end 

Of wasteful war's superfluous cruelties. 

My country, lead thou in these paths of peace ! 

But till that hour shall come let not soft ease 

Relax thy spirit or subdue thy soul ! 

Until mankind shall reach this loftier goal 

Keep thou thy sword unsheathed, for thou dost hold 

Within thy fruitful body precious seed 

Which shall into a newer life unfold 

And save the world in its extremest need. 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 309 

Two lessons have been thine to teach mankind 
Freedom, then Union ! Send thy heralds forth 
Bearing thy later message till thou find 
Peace, born of Union spread through all the earth. 



SOME CENTENNIAL MUSIC 

Mr. Charles Divan Campbell, writer of the Cen- 
tennial music consisting of the "Indiana Hymn" and 
orchestral numbers, won for himself distinction in 
1916. Mr. Campbell has been head of the Musical 
Department of Indiana University for seven years. 
He was trained in the best colleges of America and 
in the universities of Europe in both music and the 
liberal arts, and is looked upon as a composer of 
great promise. 



310 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

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THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 311 



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312 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 



A CENTENNIAL SUITE 

(For Orchestra) 
Composed for the Indiana Centennial, 1916, by 
Frederic Krull, in four movements : 

1. The Continent 

2. Native Moods 

3. The Pioneer Advance 

4. Fulfillment 

The first movement, conceived in a broad sweep- 
ing spirit, commemorates the boundless, formless 
territory before the white man's advent. The sec- 
ond movement is suggestive of the aboriginal life in 
its domestic, woodlike, religious, and amorous 
phases. The third movement portrays the white 
man's coming and the first steps toward develop- 
ment. The fourth movement is a thematic Hymn 
of Thanksgiving. 

This composition, written in response to the invi- 
tation of the Centennial Music Committee, and ac- 
cepted for performance as part of the Centennial 
Program, shared the fate of all other Indiana music, 
excepting that composed by Dr. Campbell expressly 
for the pageant. The suite was not performed. 
The Indianapolis Musical Committee chose instead 
a requiem composed by the illustrious Italian, 
Verdi, wherewith the Centennial was solemnly and 
magnificently brought to an end. 



FOR A PIONEER'S MEMORIAL 



From poems by Meredith Nicholson 

Copyright 1900 
Words by special permission of the publishers 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



CoRnfKE L. Babctjs. 



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Copyright 1916 by Coriane L. Barcus. 



314 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 
INDIANA SLOGAN 



Words by Sarah T. Bolton. 

With spirited dignity. 



Music by Corinne L. BARCU8. 



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Copyright /grj by C. L. Barcus, 




THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 315 



FROM THE SOUL OF THE PIONEER 
MOTHER 

I 

When first the starry worlds their courses knew 

And law and order out of chaos sprang, 

And bounds of the vast land and sea were set, 

And man was in God's holy image made, 

I was. Beside my sponsors, Time and Fate, 

I stood in presence of Creative Power. 

I felt Fate's fearful eyes upon me fixed ; 

I saw her right forefinger point aloft; 

In her left hand my cup of life she held ; 

I heard her deep voice loud and clear speak out : 

II 

"O Soul, thy work of Heaven appointed is; 
To nourish, guide and save the race, thy task ! 
Thy cup holds gifts from Being's essence come; 
All wondrous powers of heart, and brain, and hand. 
Travail thy portion, and ecstatic joy, 
Endurance, faith, high courage, mighty love. 
Thy way far over devious paths may lead : 
If through the vale of gloom and pain, shrink not; 
The faith given thee must cope with every odd, 
And all things in the end are ordered well ; 
If to the sunlit hills upon whose slopes 
Transfigured visions of life's meaning come, 
Bring thou the vision down unto thy task, 
For only through thy work fulfilment lies. 



316 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

Drink thy life's cup down to the dregs. Fear not ; 
There will be heartsease mingled with the rue. 
Magnificent thy doom beyond all power 
Of birth, or place, or earthly circumstance. 
The countless ages wait upon thy course I" 

Then from Fate's hand I took the proffered cup 
And unafraid, I drank it, crying out, 
"I take the task by Heaven appointed me ; 
I will for unborn generations stand ! 
The cause of all mankind is linked with me ! 
With me !" 

Ill 

Hoary Time his magic wand did raise ; 
With far-off look, he turned to me and said : 
"The years as moments are and moments, years ; 
In my long ken adown the way of life, 
Was, and Is, and Will Be, are the same. 
Heed well the mandate given to thee by Fate, 
For patience long is price of her reward. 
Touch thou my magic wand and view with me 
From future heights the course of human kind. 
Note well the scenes that pass before thine eyes ; 
Let not the present lead thee to despair ; 
But ever must thou keep in mind the end, 
And moments see in light of Time's great sweep." 

IV 

I touched Time's wand ; it gave me power to see 
My dauntless children founding a new State, 
To stand in our united Commonwealths 
For patriotism, progress, purpose high. 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 317 

Beside her help-mate comes a joyous bride 
Who with strong heart her tearful parting takes 
From home and friends and all she loves so well. 
At last o'er lonely way and journey long, 
The wilderness, her future home, is reached. 

I see a mother o'er her first born bend, 
Her face all radiant with maternal joy ; 
She croons her lullaby of hope and love 
As Mary did o'er Bethl'em's manger rude. 

Again all white with fear alone she stands ; 
Her tender children from her arms are torn, 
Victims to a hideous savage foe ; 
The wild beasts howl till safety seems no more. 

I looked on flow'ry meadows, waving grain, 
And knew that underneath were graves unmarked 
O'er which the ploughshare and the sickle passed ; 
Graves in which young mothers once were laid, 
Dying so young, beneath life's overstrain. 

To deeds of love a mother now goes forth ; 
Eyes of the dead are closed ; the sick made well ; 
The hopeless and discouraged ones made glad. 
In humble home, as queen of household arts, 
She plies with skill the shuttle, needle, wheel. 

List ! The war-drum beats ! The bugle blows ! 
Their bodeful message to her mind comes clear. 
To Country's call she hero's answer gives ; 
"Take thou my sons ! Life of my life, I yield !" 
Ah, motherhood, how great thy sacrifice! 
What nation can to thee repay thy loss ? 



318 SOME TORCH BEARERS IN INDIANA 

In war-tent now by wounded she keeps watch ; 
Her mother heart the dying accent hears ; 
She died with each brave son she lost, yet lives 
To suffer death, remembering her past joys. 

I turned where Education purpose gives, 
And wider, larger span to womanhood ; 
The first four walls no longer bound the home ; 
The world her country and its people hers ; 
Co-operate service now of her is asked, 
Yet voice in laws which govern her denied ; 
O brothers, husbands, sons, so long she waits 
Your championship for justice still deferred ! 

V 

A glad scene passes now before my view ; 
Advancing banners wave ! Music of pean 
Dirge and anthem of high praise peals out ; 
Exultant people sing of love and home ; 
Youths and maidens, children in gay dance, 
And aged ones keep holiday to mark 
Their Statehood's first Centennial year ; to give 
Due honor to its founders — Pioneers ! 

The crowd makes way ! A deep hush falls ! They 

come 
Who the unbroken wilderness transformed, 
The father and the mother Pioneer, 
Hand in hand, by joyous children led 
To the high seat with ivy decked for them. 
Midst shouts of loud acclaim and music glad, 
A crown for service on each head is placed ; 



THE CENTENNIAL TORCH 319 

Full partners, they in equal honor stand, 
Not crowned as ancient king or queen to rule ! 
They wear the only crown this country gives, 
A wreath for honor, toil, achievement won. 
With upraised hands they signal, blessing given ; 
The multitude in humble silence stand, 
And with the aged pair, well pleased, look through 
A Century's purple mist on lives well spent. 

VI 

Time lowered his wand; the magic power was lost. 
Fate spoke again, "Be strong, O Soul ! Doubt not ! 
As said at first, 'Magnificent thy doom 
Beyond all power of birth or circumstance !' " 



INDEX 



Abbott, Lyman, 28. 
"Abolition Intelligencer," 58. 
Adams, J. Ottis, 222. 
Adams, Wayman, 222. 
Ade, George, 266-272, 249. 
"Alice Dean, The," 298, 299. 
Alleghany Mountains, 5, 121. 
Alton, 111., 65. 
Altruism, 175-181. 
America, 9, 31. 
Anderson town, 53. 
Anderson, Fidelia, 133. 
Anthony, Susan B., 218, 249. 
Antioch College, Ohio, 125, 128. 
Anti-slavery, 80. 
Apperson, Edgar, 158. 
Apperson, Elmer, 157. 
Architecture, 237-240. 
Art and Music, 221-244. 
Asbury, Francis, 61. 
Asbury University, 103. 
Atkins, Elias C, 13-17. 
Aunty De Hodey, 179-180. 
Aurora, Ind., 292. 
Automobile, 154-160. 

Bacon, Mrs. Albion Fellows, 200-207. 

Ballodet, John, 118. 

Banta, Judge David B., 46. 

Barcus, Corinne L., 313, 314. 

Bartholomew, 120. 

Bass, Florence, 248. 

Baumgarten, Mrs., 294. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 28, 74, 245. 

Bell, Eliza C, x. 

Bell, William A., 125-129. 

Bell, William A., Public School, 128. 

Beveridge, A. J., 249. 

Bicknell, Ernest P., 189, 194-199. 

Biddy, James, 295. 



Blackford, Judge Isaac, 105-108, 117. 

Blake, Katherine E., 248. 

Blaker, Eliza, 26. 

Bloomington, 30, 292. 

Bobbs, John Stough, 138-142. 

Boilers, 18-20. 

Bolton, Sarah T., 251, 254-255. 

Booth, Franklin, 222. 

Boone, Daniel, 114. 

Bowker, R. R., 148. 

Bradford, John, 116. 

Brayton, Dr. A. W., 135. 

Brookville, Ind., 135, 247, 292, 295. 

Brown, Caroline, 288. 

Brown, Demarchus, 136. 

Brown, Eddie, 224. 

Brown, George P., 133. 

Brown, Hilton, 136. 

Brown, John, 281. 

Browning, Elizabeth B., 253. 

Browning, Robert, 73, 252. 

Bryan, William Lowe, 137. 

Buckley, Mrs., 295. 

Bundy, J. E., 222. 

Burns, Lee, 302. 

Buteux, Father, 38. 

Butler, Amos W., 135, 189, 249. 

Butler College, 133, 273. 

Butler University, 124. 

Cahier, Sadie Layton Walker, 241- 

244. 
Campbell, Charles D-, 309, 312. 
Camp Morton, 169, 172. 
Cannelton, 294. 
Carlton, Emma, 246. 
Carson, Kit, 114. 
Catt, Mrs. Carrie Chapman, 217. 
Cavanaugh, John, 291. 
Centennial gifts, 124. 



321 



322 



INDEX 



Centennial Memorial Hospitals, 294. 

Centennial Ode, 303-309. 

Centennial suite, 312. 

Centennial Torch, 291-319. 

Centerville, Ind., 85. 

Chandler and Taylor, 18-20. 

Chandler, Thomas, 19. 

Charities, State Board of, 190, 192. 

Charlestown, Ind., 79, 217. 

Chase, W. M., 224-228. 

Chitwood, Louisa, 247. 

Church, Baptist, 53. 

Church, Plymouth, 73. 

Church, Presbyterian, 57. 

Circuit Rider, 61. 

Civil Service Chronicle, 103, 104. 

Civil War, 7, 28, 34, 175, 275. 

Clark County, 28, 53, 299. 

Clark, George Rogers, 112, 114, 116, 
117. 

Clay, Henry, 68. 

Coburn, John C, 110. 

Cockrum, Wm. M., 101. 

Coffin, Charles F., 190. 

Coffin, Levi, 182. 

Colonial Dames of Indiana, 248. 

Columbus, Christopher, 249. 

Columbus, Ind., 294. 

Congressional Ordinance of 1787, 25, 
77, 78, 79, 81. 

Connersville, 294. 

Connor's Prairie, 186. 

Constitution of Indiana, 44. 

Constitution of United States, 44, 
69. 

Constitutional convention at Cory- 
don, 1816, 29, 30. 

Constitutional Elm, Corydon, Ind., 
297. 

Corydon, 30, 31, 57, 185, 246, 297, 
298. 

Cottman, George S., 101, 109. 

Cotton, Elizabeth, 229. 

Coudert, Amalia Kuessner, 232-235. 

Coulter, John M., 135. 

Coulter, Stanley M., 59. 

Covington, Ind., 21. 



Cox, Willard E., 248. 
Crawfordsville, 33, 246, 275, 279, 

292, 293, 295. 
Croly, Jennie, 219. 
Cropsey, Nebraska, 26, 134. 
Crowe, John Finley, 57-59, 71, 246. 
Cunningham, S. A., 171. 
Curtis, George W., 103. 

Daniels, Edward, 129. 

Daviess County, 28. 

Dearborn County, Ind., 79. 

De la Hunt, Thomas, 290. 

Delphi, Ind., 294, 295. 

Dennis, Charles, 250. 

Dennis, Dr. David W., 135. 

DePauw, 46, 135. 

Devine, Dr. Edward T., 197. 

Dewey, Charles, 108. 

Dickey, John M., 28. 

Dill, James, 100. 

Dillon, John B., 101, 109-111, 112, 

248. 
Diplomacy, 92-97. 
Dooley, Mrs. 294. 
Donnan, Laura, 296. 
Doty, Jonathan, 117. 
Doty, Susan, 10. 
Douglas, Stephen A., 85. 
Dreiser, Theodore, 246. 
Dudley, Robert, pseud., 248. 
Dumont, Julia, 26, 246. 
Dunn, Jacob P., 101, 102, 248. 
Dye, John T., 5. 

Eads, James B., 161-166, 245. 
Education, 24, 25-31, 75. 
Educational journalism, 125-129. 
Eggleston, Edward, 251, 255-256, 

279. 
Eggleston, George Cary, 249. 
Ehrman, Mrs., 294. 
Eli Lilly Company, 2. 
Emancipation, unconditional, 65-70. 
Emmeline Fairbanks Library, 230. 
Emmerich, Charles, 134. 
Enabling Act 1816, 29. 



INDEX 



323 



Engineer, 161-166. 
Ernestinoff, A., 223, 242. 
Esarey, Logan, 111-115, 248. 
Evansville, 182, 200, 204, 246, 295. 
Evermann, B. W., 136. 
Ewing, Nathaniel, 118. 

Fauntleroy, Jane Dale Owens, 214. 

Fauntleroy, Mrs., 215. 

Fishback, W. P., 135. 

Findley, John, 250. 

Fletcher, Stoughton A., 74. 

Floyd, Davis, 100. 

Ford, Gabriel, 106. 

"For a Pioneer Mother's Memo 

rial," 313. 
Forsythe, Clarence, 223. 
Forsythe, William, 222. 
Fort Wayne, 63, 186, 187, 292, 300 
Foster, John M., 76. 
Foster, Samuel M., 291. 
Foulke, William D., 84, 103, 249, 

293, 303. 
Fountain County, Ind., 21. 
Franklin, Ind., 225. 
Free public schools of Indiana, 32- 

37. 
French missionaries, 27, 52. 
Friends, 19, 189, 190. 
"From the Soul of the Pioneer 

Mother," 315-319. 
Fulling, John, 298. 
Fussell, Susan, 176. 

Gallatin, Albert, 118. 

Garrison, W. L., 8, 65. 

Gary schools, 41-46. 

General Federation of Woman's 

Clubs, 217. 
Gibault, Father, 52, 116. 
Gibson, John, 99. 
Gibson, Louis H., 240. 
Gilbert, Charles H., 134, 136. 
Godare., Mme., 299, 300. 
Goodwin, Frances M., 222. 
Grant, 92, 173. 
Greeley, Laura, x. 



Greencastle, 102. 

Greensburg, 63. 

Greenville, Ind., 301. 

Gregg fund, 178. 

Gruelle, J. B., 222. 

Guerin, Mother Theresa, 37-41. 

Hack, Elizabeth Miller, 272-274. 

Hale, Louise Closser, 250. 

Hanna, Robert, 100. 

Hannegan, Edward, 101. 

Hanover College, 26, 59, 208, 209. 

Hardin, Francis, 299. 

Harper, Ida Husted, 104, 249. 

Harris, Addison C, 5. 

Harrison, Benjamin, 51, 77, 101. 

Harrison, W. H., 100, 106, 120. 

Hay, Anna, 217. 

Hay, John Milton, 92-97. 

Hay, Mary G., 216-220. 

Hayes, B. F., 225, 277. 

Haynes, Elwood, 154-160. 

Hendricks, Thomas, 101. 

Henry County, 69. 

Herron Art Institute, 222. 

Hershey, Amos S., 248. 

Hicks, Elias, 68. 

Higher education for women, 37-41. 

Hines, L. N., 295. 

Hobson, 298. 

Hodgin, 114. 

Hoffman, 137. 

Hoffman, Louise, 301. 

Holliday, E. M., 124. 

Holliday, John H., 121-124, 293. 

Holman, Joseph, 100. 

Hoosier Elm Chapter, D. A. R., 297. 

Hopkins, 120. 

House, Ben D., 280. 

Housing reform, 200-207. 

Hovey, Edmund O., 33, 34. 

Howe, Daniel Wait, 248. 

Howes, Martha, x. 

Howland, Louis, 250. 

Huntingburg, 294. 

Huntington, 250, 295. 

Hyman, Max, 101. 



324 



INDEX 



"Hymn to Indiana," 310-311. 

Indian affairs, 188. 
Indiana, 22, 37, 111, 249, 270. 
Indiana Academy of Science, 135. 
Indiana Centennial Medal, 228. 
Indiana College, 26, 32. 
"Indiana Farmer, The," 103. 
Indiana Hospital for the Insane, 140. 
Indiana illiteracy, 25, 33, 255. 
"Indiana Medical Journal," 102. 
"Indiana School Journal," 125. 
Indiana slogan, 314. 
Indiana State Bar Association, 5. 
Indiana State Board of Health, 210. 
Indiana Territory, 29, 80. 
Indiana University, 32, 97, 309. 
Indianapolis, 25, 29, 122, 214. 
"Indianapolis News," 250-254. 
Institutional church, 71-75. 
Inventions, 154-160. 

Jefferson County, Ind., 29. 

Jenkins, Oliver P., 135. 

Jennings, Jonathan, 30, 77-82, 106. 

Johnson, Alexander, 189. 

Johnson, John, 100, 107. 

Johnson, Romeo, 136. 

Johnston, A. L., 246. 

Jones, Jenkin Lloyd, 83. 

Jones, John Rice, 100. 

Jones, Lewis H., 134. 

Jordan, David Starr, 131-137, 249. 

Journalism, 102-105, 116-124. 

"Journalism, the Joys of," 282-287. 

Julian, George W., 66, 70, 247. 

Kansas-Nebraska bill, 85. 

Kent, Ind., 208. 

Kenton, 114. 

Kentucky, 29, 33, 52, 78, 83. 

Kindergarten, 26. 

Kindness, 167-181. 

Kinney, Belle, 171. 

Knights of the Golden Circle, 90. 

Kokomo, 155, 158. 



Krout, Caroline, 248, 280. 
Krout, Mary H., 24, 100, 248, 280. 
Krull, Frederic, 223, 312. 
Kuhlman, A. L., 292. 

Lafayette, Ind., 50, 51, 209, 247, 

269, 275. 
Lane, Henry S., 101. 
La Tourette, Sarah, 21-24. 
La Tourette, Schuyler, 21. 
Law, 98-101, 105-108. 
Lawrence County, Ind., 13, 17. 
Lawrenceburg, 28, 63, 161, 245. 
Lebanon, Ind., 293. 
Lesseuer, C. A., 130. 
Letters, 245-290. 
Levering, Julia H., 101. 
Lewis, Charles S., 128. 
Library science, 148-153. 
Lieber, Carl, 307. 
Lieber, Richard, 293. 
Lincoln, 7, 28, 82, 83, 84, 92, 249, 281. 
Lind, Jenny, 241. 
Lindley, Harlowe, 291. 
Lister, Sir Joseph, 138. 
Livermore, Mary A., 74. 
Lockwood, George B., 250. 
Logan, Captain, 301. 
Logansport, 110, 187, 300. 
Loring, George B., 210. 
Lovejoy, E. P., 65. 
Lovett, Robert M., 265. 
Lundy, Benjamin, 67. 
Lyon, Mary, 40, 41. 

Mace, W. H., 126. 
McClure, William, 130. 
McCoy, Isaac, 52-56. 
McCulloch, O. C, 71-75, 135. 
McDonald, J. E., 90. 
McDowell, Dr. Ephraim, 29. 
McKey, Benjamin F., 294. 
McKeen, Hugh B., 301. 
McKinley, President, 92. 
McStoops, Mrs., 295. 
McWhirter, Mrs. Luella, 218. 



INDEX 



325 



Madison, Ind., 29, 187, 215, 223, 

238, 254, 269. 
Major, Charles, 248. 
Mann, Horace, 125. 
Markel, Sarah Alice, 298. 
Markle, Ind., 46. 
Marshall, Humphrey, 117. 
Marshall, John, 249. 
Mason, Daniel Gregory, 263, 265. 
Mathews, Mrs., 295. 
Mauckport, Ind., 298. 
Maxwell, Dr. David Hervey, 29-32. 
May, Edwin, 237-240. 
Merrill, Catharine, 136, 248. 
Merritt, George, 175-187. 
Miller, Joaquin, 247. 
Milligan, Harry K, 273. 
Mills, Caleb, 32-37, 246. 
Milroy family, 294. 
Miniature painting, 232-235. 
Mishawaka, Ind., 10. 
Monroe, James, 186. 
Montgomery County, Ind., 33. 
Moody, William Vaughn, 246, 257- 

266. 
Moores, Charles W., 35, 95, 249, 

291,-306. 
Morgan, Clara, 300. 
Morris, William, 24, 221. 
Morrison, Frances, 168. 
Morton, Oliver P., 84-91, 141, 175, 

249, 303. 
Morton, W. T. G., 138. 
Muncie, 225. 

New Albany, 258, 263, 301. 

Newcastle, Ind., 220. 

New Harmony, 26, 46, 214, 215, 

216, 246. 
New Jersey, 79, 106, 117. 
Newsom, Vida, 294. 
New York, 46, 218, 219, 225, 226, 

229, 242. 
Nicholas, Anna, 282-287. 
Nicholson, Meredith, 275-282, 313. 
Nicholson, Mary E., x, 133. 
Nicholson, Timothy, 182, 189-193. 



Nilsson, Christine, 241, 244. 

Noble, James, 100, 187. 

Noblesville, 186. 

Norman, Charles, 302. 

Northwest Territory, 98, 99, 100, 

116. 
Nutting, Charles A., 134. 

O'Bannon, Lew M., 291. 

Oglesby, Joseph, 63. 

Ohio, 8, 13, 19, 69, 245, 269. 

"Oldfish" (Charles Dennis), 250. 

Oliver, James, 8-13. 

Oliver, John, x. 

Oliver, Joseph, 12. 

Oliver chilled plow, 8-13. 

"Once Upon a Time In Indiana," 

248. 
Ordinance of 1787, 77, 78, 89. 
"Organizer, The," 218. 
Osborn, John W., 102. 
Osborn, Captain Samuel, 102. 
Osborne, Charles, 65-70. 
Owen County, 293. 
Owen, David Dale, 130. 
Owen, Richard, 130, 167. 
Owen, Robert Dale, 130, 223, 249. 

Pageants, 292. 

Parke, Benjamin, 100, 117. 

Parker, Benjamin, 251. 

Parsons, Samuel Holden, 98. 

Parsons, William W., 134. 

Patriotism, 76-98. 

Pendleton, Ind., 266. 

Perry County, Ind., 114. 

Perry Township, Ind., 31. 

"Philanthropist, The," 66. 

Philputt, Allan, 137. 

Pierce, Oliver Willard, 224. 

Pioneer Mother Memorial, The, 296. 

Pioneers, 25, 271. 

"Plough Boy, The," 102. 

Plummer, Mary Wright, 148-153. 

Plymouth Institute, 72. 

"Pocahontas," 249. 

Pokagon, 3. 



326 



INDEX 



Porter, Albert G., 108. 

Porter, G. Stratton-, 249. 

Portland, Ind., 100, 154, 159, 294. 

Posey County, Ind., 21. 

Prison reform, 189-193. 

"Public Library, In the" (sonnet), 

148. 
Purdue, John, 6, 40, 50. 
Purdue University, 48, 49, 50, 51, 

210. 
Pure food reform, 208-213. 

Quaker, 14, 19, 66, 70, 79, 149, 

182, 218. 
Quakers, Hicksite, 68. 
Quakerism, 65-70. 

Ralston, Gov. Samuel M., 291, 292. 

Randolph, Thomas, 80, 81. 

Rappites, 21. 

Ray, Edwin M., 64. 

"Read, Circulate and Discuss" 

(pamphlet), 35, 36. 
Red Cross, American, 194-199. 
Reed, Myron, 135, 281. 
Reed, Lodie, 218. 
Reeves, A. M. (tablet, Richmond, 

Ind.), 230. 
Reisner, George A., 143-147. 
Religion, 24, 25, 27, 52-75. 
Rich, Thaddeus, 224. 
Richards, Myra Talbot, 223. 
Richmond, Ind., 68, 149, 182, 292. 
Riley, James W., 135, 223, 251-254, 

270, 281. 
Ripley County, Ind., 76. 
Roach, Judge, 136. 
Roberts, Junius B., 133. 
Roberts, Lord, 7. 
Rockport, Ind., 294. 
Rockville, Ind., 88, 294. 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 92, 212, 236, 

237. 
Runcie, Mrs. J. D. O. F., 213, 214, 

216. 
Russell, 120. 



St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, 8. 

St. Joseph County, Ind., 10. 

St. Louis bridge, 163. 

St. Mary's of the Woods, 37-41, 

234. 
Salem, Ind., 26, 92. 
Salisbury, Ind., 85. 
Sauk Trail, 3. 
Say, Thomas, 130. 
Saylor, Oliver M., 250. 
Scott, James, 100. 
Scudder, J. M., 99. 
Scudder, Janet, 228-231, 302. 
Sculpture, 223, 228-231. 
Sewall, May Wright, 134. 
Sewall, Theodore L., 134. 
Seward, W. H., 93. 
Shaw, Rev. Anna, 219. 
Shaw, Robert Gould, 251. 
Shelby, 120, 124. 
Shirk, John C, 295. 
Shortridge High School tablet, 295. 
Smart, James H., 46-51. 
Smith, Nicholas, 117. 
Song, 241-244. 

Sorosis Club, New York, 213, 214. 
South Bend, 3, 4, 5, 7, 11. 
Spencer, Ind., 263. 
Stanton, E. Cady, 218. 
Stark, Otto, 222. 
State Capitol, Indianapolis, 238, 

239, 240. 
State Park Association, 293. 
State-wide letter exchange, 297-302. 
Steele, Theodore C, 222. 
Stein, Evaleen, 250. 
Stephenson, 273. 
Stevenson, Augusta, 249. 
Stout, Elihu, 102, 116-120, 121. 
Strange, John, 61-65. 
Stubbs, George W., 191. 
Studebaker Brothers, 3-8. 
Studebaker, John M., 5, 6. 
Studebaker, Peter, 4, 7, 8. 
Sullivan, Ind., 103. 
Surgery, 138-142. 



INDEX 



327 



Swain, Joseph E., 137. 
Swift, Lucius B., 103, 104. 
Symmes, John Cleves, 98. 

Taft, W. H., 213. 
Tapestry, American, 23. 
Tarkington, Booth, 287-290. 
Taylor, Franklin, 19. 
Taylor, Phoebe Mode, 19. 
Technical education, 20, 26, 46-51, 

116. 
"Temperance Advocate," 102. 
Terre Haute, 26, 28, 38, 102, 228, 

233. 
"Thanks" (a poem), 168. 
"There Is No Unbelief," 27. 
Thompson, Edwin, 134. 
Thompson, James, 33. 
Thompson, Maurice, 248, 249, 251, 

279, 280. 
Thompson, Richard W., 101, 248. 
Thompson, Will H., 246, 247. 
Thoreau, 278, 281. 
Tipton, Ind., 294. 
Tipton, John, 120, 182, 183-189, 294. 
Tompkins, Arnold, 126. 
Troost, Dr. Gerald, 131. 
Turkey Run, 293, 294. 
Turner, 114. 

Underground railroad, 101-182. 
Unitarian Church, 19. 

Valparaiso, 26. 
Varnum, James, 98. 
Vawter, Will, 222. 
Vernon, Ind., 254. 
Vevay, 26, 245. 

Vincennes, 29, 37, 78, 99, 102, 115, 
116, 118, 120, 185, 197, 246, 301. 
Voorhees, Daniel, 101. 

Wabash College, 33, 34, 138. 
Wabash, Ind., 21, 38, 246, 251. 



Walker, Barclay, 223. 
Walker, I. N., 241, 242, 244. 
Walker, Mrs. I. N., 243. 
Wallace, Lew, 108, 246, 249, 272, 

273, 276, 279, 280. 
Wallace, William, 279. 
Wallace, Zerelda, 218. 
Warren, 67. 

Wayne County, Ind., 85. 
Wesley, John, 61. 
Washington, B. T., 74. 
Webster, D., 77. 
Whetzel, 114. 
White Canvas, The, 227. 
Whitman, 166, 281. 
Wiley, Dr. Harvey W., 134, 183, 

208-213. 
Williams, Alice, 297. 
Williams, Genevieve, 294. 
Williams, Minnie Alcott, 250. 
Wilson, Charles E., 51. 
Wilson, Elizabeth Conwell, 247. 
Wilson, Forsythe, 246. 
Wilson, Henry Lane, 2. 
Wilson, Melza B., 223. 
Wirt, William A., 41-46. 
Woman's first literary club in United 

States, 213, 215, 216. 
Wood, Fletcher, 101. 
Wood, William Allen, ix. 
Woodburn, James A., 115, 137, 291, 

293. 
Woodward, W. C, 293. 
Woollen, William W., 249. 
Wright, Frances, 218. 
Wynn, Frank B., 291, 296. 

Yohn, Fred Coffay, 235-237. 
Young, Gen. Bennett H., 174. 
Young People's Historical Lecture 
Course, 74. 

Zueblin, Charles, 266. 



